sea stack
/ˈsi ˌstæk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.01 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The sea-gull sprang upwards from where he had floated on the ripple, and hied him slowly away to his lodge in his deep sea-stack; the dusky cormorant flitted past, with heavier and more frequent stroke, to his whitened shelf high on the precipice; [...]"
- "That this defile may have been partly eroded by the action of the sea is also very probable; and there are certain isolated pinnacles and irregular columns of agglomerate in its immediate neighbourhood which have all the appearance of being old sea-stacks."
- "The sea, with its tremendous battering-power, is excavating caves, just as the streams make pot-holes; only the action is horizontal, rather than vertical, the water lashing like a whip around the flanks of the sea-stacks and islets."
- "At the foot of the cliffs are narrow boulder beaches and a few sea stacks."
- "Off the shore of still another island they found a stand of sea stacks, weird towers of rock sculpted by sand and wind and engulfed in flocks of gulls and cormorants, and as they banked for another look, Kate saw three bald eagles take wing."
- "Lying off the north-west coast of the island is the Old Man of Hoy, the most famous sea stack in the world. At a height of 450ft it dominates the neighbouring cliffs of which it was once part."
Etymology
From sea + stack (“a heap, pile; large vertical column of rock in the sea”); stack is derived from Middle English stak (“a heap, pile, stack; large vertical column of rock in the sea”) [and other forms], from Old Norse stakkr (“a heap, pile; haystack; barn”) (compare Faroese stakkur (“sea stack”)), from Proto-Germanic *stakkaz (“pile of hay, haystack”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“beam, pole, stick”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsi ˌstæk/
- British English: /ˈsiː ˌstæk/
Usage
- British usage