World Ocean

or world o·cean

[ wurld oh-shuhn ]

noun

1. the interconnected system of all the bodies of salt water that cover more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface:

   These statistical assessments of the World Ocean are of critical interest to oceanographers and climatologists everywhere.

Word History and Origins

Origin of World Ocean¹

Coined by Yuli Mikhailovich Shokalsky (1856–1940), Russian oceanographer and cartographer in Oceanography (1917)

Example Sentences

There are probably millions of them around the world ocean.

From Science Daily

"The world ocean, in 2023, is now the hottest ever recorded, and sea levels are rising because heat causes water to expand and ice to melt," says Prof. England.

From Science Daily

Celebrate the weekend before World Ocean Day in downtown Tacoma with a twilight lantern paddle and a beach cleanup.

From Seattle Times

"The Baltic is strange - it's low oxygen, low temperature, low salinity, so many organic things are well preserved in the Baltic where they wouldn't be well preserved elsewhere in the world ocean system," said Foley.

From Reuters

Maritime historian Helen M. Rozwadowski writes, "The vast expanse of the world ocean, the dominant feature of planet Earth, has remained at the edges of our histories."

From Salon