Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or on a shore, especially a seashore.
- noun A coastal region; a shore.
- noun The region or zone between the limits of high and low tides.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to a shore, as of the sea or a great lake; frequenting or living near the shore: as, littoral trade; littoral fishes or vegetation.
- Situated or bordering on a shore: as, the Littoral Provinces (Litorale or Küstenland), a division of Austria on the east coast of the Adriatic.
- noun A littoral tract or region; the part of a country lying along the coast.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to a shore, as of the sea.
- adjective (Biol.) Inhabiting the seashore, esp. the zone between high-water and low-water mark.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective of or relating to the
shore , especially theseashore . - noun A shore.
- noun The
zone of acoast betweenhigh tide andlow tide levels.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the region of the shore of a lake or sea or ocean
- adjective of or relating to a coastal or shore region
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word littoral.
Examples
-
If you want the coast guard to operate in American littoral waters, you will need an imminent danger right next to your littoral waters.
A Coast Guard that guards everyone else’s coast « Antiwar.com Blog 2008
-
Gates also said the U.S. would deploy to Singapore a newly developed warship known as the littoral combat ship, which is a smaller combat vessel designed to operate close to shorelines rather than in the open ocean.
-
Gates also said the U.S. would deploy to Singapore a newly developed warship known as the littoral combat ship, which is a smaller combat vessel designed to operate close to shorelines rather than in the open ocean.
-
Gates also said the U.S. would deploy to Singapore a newly developed warship known as the littoral combat ship, which is a smaller combat vessel designed to operate close to shorelines rather than in the open ocean.
-
Gates also said the U.S. would deploy to Singapore a newly developed warship known as the littoral combat ship, which is a smaller combat vessel designed to operate close to shorelines rather than in the open ocean.
-
Perhaps someone may enlighten readers by stripping away all of the legal jargon littoral, etc. and explaining what is happening here.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Supreme Court Takes Regulatory Takings Case: 2009
-
A coastal variant of subtropical rain forest known as littoral rain forest is capable of withstanding high levels of airborne salt.
-
But away from the haunts of man along the littoral is a region of startling beauty -- of rivers and lagoons and hills, their shores and slopes garmented with perennial verdure, the forest-seas bathing the bases of towering peaks.
Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development Martin [Editor] Hume 1919
-
Technically, this is called the littoral area, and it is divisible into zones, each with its characteristic population.
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told J. Arthur Thomson 1897
-
What we may term the littoral or shore zone of the sea occupies a belt of prevailingly shallow water, varying in width from a few score to a few hundred miles.
Outlines of the Earth's History A Popular Study in Physiography Nathaniel Southgate Shaler 1873
mollusque commented on the word littoral
"Shallow water fish or literal zone fish: These fishes lives and survive in shallow water near the shore line."
--Jack Mitchell, Central Florida Bass Fishing: The Thrill"
December 4, 2007
milosrdenstvi commented on the word littoral
"A Long Littoral" was one of the assets of a successful country described by President T. Roosevelt.
August 19, 2008
super-logos commented on the word littoral
That gal had a great pair of littorals. I could lick her littorals...literally...with my lingua.
P.S. This word has a most respectable Latin origin.
Now imagine vacationing at Myrtle Littoral. Or West Palm Littoral...licking all those littorals. Sand on the lingua .....yuck@@##!
August 19, 2008
reesetee commented on the word littoral
Logos? Eew.
August 19, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word littoral
Not an absolutely blemishless Latin origin though. The Latin word was lītus, lītor- "shore" and developed a variant writing littus for no good reason. The opposite happened with littera "letter", which had a ne'er-do-well variant lītera. In both cases the non-standard Latin words have prevailed, giving rise to English 'littoral' but 'literal', and likewise in other modern languages.
August 19, 2008
super-logos commented on the word littoral
:-)
August 19, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word littoral
I was thinking the same thing, rt.
August 19, 2008
fbharjo commented on the word littoral
by the see shure
January 9, 2009
heypacksees commented on the word littoral
Before the pelagic & benthic. The shore. From the high water mark to the continental shelf; includes the splash, intertidal, and neritic.
November 21, 2011