seawater

[ see-waw-ter, -wot-er ]

noun

1. the salt water in or from the sea.

seawater

/ sē′wô′tər /

1. Salt water, normally with a salinity of 35 parts per thousand (3.5%), in or coming from the sea or ocean. Although seawater contains more than 70 elements, most seawater salts are ions of six major elements: chloride, sodium, sulfate, magnesium, calcium, and potassium. The major sources of these salts are underwater volcanic eruptions, chemical reactions involving volcanic matter, and chemical weathering of rocks on the coasts. Seawater is believed to have had the same salinity for billions of years.

Word History and Origins

Origin of seawater¹

before 1000; Middle English see water, Old English sǣwæter; sea, water

Example Sentences

The skeleton is indeed made of glass, which the animal, Euplectella aspergillum — nicknamed “Venus’ flower basket,” — creates using acid extracted from seawater.

From Quanta Magazine

It would be useful to know whether it also would break down in seawater, she adds.

From Science News For Students

The region is known for thousand-year-old salterns that produce fleur de sel, or flower of salt—salt that forms as seawater evaporates.

From Nautilus

While watching them, he noticed how seawater covered open blowholes.

From Science News For Students

Storm surge is the height to which the seawater level rises as a result of a storm, on top of the normal tidal level.

From Science News

The seawater once covering 26,000 square miles vanishes into desert.

From The Daily Beast

Anguilla is an arid, flat Caribbean island surrounded on all sides by seawater.

From The Daily Beast

In effect, then, the resort is harnessing the power of the sun to turn seawater into a nourishing resource—for people and plants.

From The Daily Beast

And for that, it turned to the one resource it has in abundance—aside from seawater.

From The Daily Beast

Then Hurricane Sandy dumped four feet of dirty seawater into his building.

From The Daily Beast

This could, however, only now be looked upon as lost; for the seawater must have spoilt everything eatable.

From Project Gutenberg

His thick, black hair that he had combed straight back with his fingers, dripped seawater on his bronzed, muscular shoulders.

From Project Gutenberg

Clothes that are made wet with seawater, which probably has a little sand in it, are as uncomfortable as crumbs in bed.

From Project Gutenberg

I'm numb with heat--I can imagine myself thirsty for disaster drinking seawater and thinking there's a spring nearby.

From Project Gutenberg

"That's so," said the other sailor, tormented like the other two by thirst, aggravated by his draughts of seawater.

From Project Gutenberg