Aral Sea
2
4.6
- proper noun
:
Mar de Aral
- Now, the Aral Sea is only a fraction of its earlier size.
- Aral Sea Basin
- Aral Sea disaster
- development of the Aral Sea
Examples
-
Just 25 years ago, the Aral Sea in Central Asia was the world's fourth-largest lake, covering 25,476 square miles.
Academic text (1997) -
The Aral Sea's water level has dropped between 40 and 50 feet.
Academic text (1997) -
Before 1960, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world.
Academic text (1996) -
Sadly, further regression of the Aral Sea is inevitable; already, the lake has been divided into two separate bodies of water.
Academic text (1996) -
The inflow to the Aral Sea has been reduced to almost nothing, and as a consequence, the Aral Sea has been decreasing rapidly in size.
Academic text (1992) -
Before 1960, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world.
-
Since 1960, farm irrigation from rivers feeding the Aral Sea has reduced its volume by two-thirds.
Synonyms
A large lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan now much smaller because people took water from rivers
Surface Forms
Morphology
Aral + sea
The form combines the proper name 'Aral' with the clear noun 'sea', so a learner who knows the constituents will understand it denotes a sea (i.e., a body of water) called Aral. However, 'Aral' is an arbitrary place name with no lexical meaning and the specific facts about the Aral Sea (inland lake status, drastic shrinkage) cannot be derived from the parts, so the expression is not fully transparently informative.
Etymology
Aral Sea gets its name from the word Aral, a local word for 'island', because the lake once had many islands. People called it the 'sea of islands' to show it was a large body of water with islands. Even though the Aral Sea is now much smaller, the name keeps that old image.