Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the Holothurioidea; a sea-cucumber, sea-slug, trepang, or bêche-de-mer.
  • Pertaining to or having the characters of the Holothurioidea.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Zoöl.) Belonging to the Holothurioidea.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun zoology sea cucumber (of the class Holothuroidea)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun echinoderm having a flexible sausage-shaped body, tentacles surrounding the mouth and tube feet; free-living mud feeders

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin holothūria, water polyp, from Greek holothourion.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek ὅλος ("whole") + θύρα ("entrance") + -ian

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Examples

  • Cool Cuke holothurian A few weeks ago, I took part in an event showcasing the king of WTF foods—the food item that wins the crown for most bemusing common ingredient in the Chinese culinary vocabulary: The humble holothurian, better known as the common sea cucumber.

    Week in Words 2011

  • An unidentified holothurian is common on the northern reef flats, and an echinoid Heterocentrotus sp. (possibly H. trigonarius) is locally abundant on the sloping marginal reefs and shallow reef flat of the northern beach.

    Henderson Island, United Kingdom 2008

  • All right, this creature may not be an alien, but he is a holothurian from the benthic zone.

    Ugly Overload 2009

  • You'll find all sorts of denizens like our friendly holothurian here.

    Ugly Overload 2009

Comments

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  • "'The bottom of the sea must have been a sad stinking muddy place, to judge from your shoes and stockings.'

    "So it was too... but the annelids, my dear Graham, the annelids! Hundreds, nay thousands of annelids of at least six and thirty several kinds, some plumed and others plain. And wait until I tell you about my holothurians, my sea-slugs, my sea-cucumbers...'"

    --Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour, 74

    February 15, 2008