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🐙 A jellyfish stage 🌊 Like a jellyfish
medusan

medusan

9.9
A free-swimming stage in some sea animals with a soft umbrella-shaped body and tentacles
  • noun
  • /məˈdjuːzən/
  • Specialized
translation icon : medusa
  • The Medusan form of the jellyfish drifts gracefully across the ocean's surface, its tentacles trailing behind.

Examples

  • The aquarium's exhibit featured a stunning display of various Medusan species, showcasing their unique umbrella-shaped bodies.

  • During the summer, we often spot the Medusan creatures floating in the shallows, captivating beachgoers with their ethereal beauty.

  • Miles and miles of Medusan chords

    Hair (1979)

  • Miles and miles of Medusan chords

    Hair (1979)

  • We're committing suicide!" he cried, and he gave his dreadlocks a Medusan swirl so that they beat like snakes around his head.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Its black spiky Medusan tumult of hair could have outfitted both Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smith, with enough to spare for an heir.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • He does so, by every account, at Miriam's silent yet implacable behest: a glance from Miriam, her Medusan

    Academic text (2012)

Synonyms

medusa
vsmedusan
  • Specialized
1 9.6

A free-swimming form of some sea animals like jellyfish with umbrella-shaped body and tentacles

is the same meaning but appears in a different word form
medusoid
vsmedusan
  • Specialized
9.9

A free-swimming stage of some sea animals that has a bell-shaped body and tentacles

is broader referring to that sexual stage across all coelenterates

Surface Forms

medusan singular
medusans plural

Morphology

medusan = medusa (transparent) = medusa + an

Formed by the noun 'medusa' plus the productive suffix '-an', yielding an adjective/noun meaning 'relating to or a member of the medusa stage', which is directly inferable from the base.

Etymology

Medusan comes from Medusa, a woman in Greek myth whose hair was like snakes, because people thought the long tentacles of jellyfish looked the same. So a medusan is the free-swimming 'jellyfish stage' of some sea animals, the stage when they can reproduce.