seal
/siːl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.30 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A pinniped (Pinnipedia), particularly an earless seal (true seal) or eared seal.
noun
A facsimile of an impression of such stamp that is a mark or symbol of an office or organisation.
noun
Anything that secures or authenticates.
noun
Something which will be visibly damaged if a covering or container is opened, and which may or may not bear an official design.
noun
Confirmation or approval, or an indication of this.
Example Sentences
- "The seals in the harbor looked better than they smelled."
- "They're organizing a protest against sealing."
- "She [Nature] carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die."
- "The front of the podium bore the presidential seal."
- "So the matter rested until the Cranbrook & Paddock Wood Company was incorporated on August 8, 1877, appropriately displaying a bunch of hops on its seal, for these had become the principal cash crop in the area."
- "The result was declared invalid, as the seal on the meter had been broken."
Etymology
From Middle English sel, from an inflectional form of Old English seolh, from Proto-West Germanic *selh, from Proto-Germanic *selhaz (compare Scots selch,selkie, North Frisian selich, Middle Dutch seel, zēle, Old High German selah, Danish sæl, Middle Low German sale, Icelandic selur), either from Proto-Indo-European *selk- (“to pull”) (compare dialectal English sullow (“plough”)) or from early Proto-Finnic *šülkeš (later *hülgeh, compare dialectal Finnish hylki, standard hylje, Estonian hüljes).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
acme seal
Arctic seal
Atlantic gray seal
Atlantic grey seal
Baikal seal
bay seal
bearded seal
bottle-nosed seal