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Glite Dictionary
seabird

seabird

10 1.9
A bird that lives near the sea and often flies over water, like gulls or albatrosses
  • noun
  • /ˈsiːˌbɜrd/
translation icon : ave marina
  • Cadmium levels in some seabirds are high enough to cause kidney damage.
  • breeding seabirds
  • seabird colony
  • seabirds that nest

OK, you may say who cares about seabirds and fish, but The thing is, once you have a substance in the food chain, it'll spread through the entire ecosystem.

Examples

  • No one knows why the seabirds go to San Miguel.

    White Noise (2022)

  • "Temperature rise causes ice cover to decline in winter, affecting the distribution of seabirds' prey.

    Academic text (2011)

  • What we saw through them was no illusion: we saw seabirds as well as stars!

    Fiction book (2000)

  • All but a few of the usual seabirds had taken shelter.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • A variety of sea mammals and seabirds have lived on the shores of these remote islands for centuries.

    Academic text (2004)

  • By the nineteenth century, most seabird populations in New England and Nova Scotia had plummeted.

    Academic text (2009)

  • Water sloshed below and seabirds cawed and sailed back and forth in the cool air.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Numerous shorebirds and seabirds appear here, including red knots and various gulls and terns.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Walt Whitman, walking along Long Island's North Shore at Pomanic, listens to a migratory seabird pouring forth meanings in measureless measures.

  • The researcher studied the nesting habits of various seabirds along the coastline.

Synonyms

sea bird
vsseabird
1 2.0

A bird that lives near the sea, like a gull

is for birds that may only spend much time there rather than live mainly
seafowl
vsseabird
7.2

A bird that lives near the sea, like gulls or pelicans

are for birds that live near or spend much of their life at sea

Compounds

gaviiform seabird
  • Specialized
9.9

A bird like a loon that lives on northern lakes and the sea

procellariiform seabird
  • Specialized
9.9

A large sea bird with long wings, tube nostrils, and a hooked bill that travels the open ocean

sphenisciform seabird
  • Specialized
9.9

A flightless sea bird that swims well and lives in cold southern oceans

How Offshore

pelagic bird
  • Specialized
8.4
seabird
10 1.9
shorebird
3 3.7

Surface Forms

seabird singular
seabirds plural

Morphology

seabird = sea + bird (transparent) = sea + bird

The meaning is a straightforward compound of 'sea' and 'bird' referring to birds associated with the sea.

Etymology

The word seabird is simply made from sea ('large salt water') and bird ('an animal that flies'). So a seabird is a bird that lives by or over the sea, like gulls, pelicans, or albatrosses.