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Glite Dictionary
mare clausum

mare clausum

9.9
A sea or ocean that one country controls and keeps other countries out
  • noun
  • /ˈmɛrə ˈklɔːzəm/
  • Formal
translation icon : mare clausum
  • The government declared the bay a mare clausum, restricting access to foreign ships.

Examples

  • Bouchez would allow this transition to continue into the nineteenth century, at which point all remaining publicists agree the evolution from mare clausum to mare liberum was definitively complete.

    Academic text (2016)

  • Due to its status as a mare clausum, the island's waters are protected from international fishing regulations.

  • Fishing in the mare clausum zone is only permitted for licensed fishermen of the country.

Synonyms

territorial waters
vsmare clausum
  • Specialized
6 4.9

The area of sea near a country's coast that the country controls

claims exclusive control over an entire sea or ocean and excludes other states

Antonyms

mare liberum
  • Formal
9.9

A large area of sea that ships from any country can use freely

Surface Forms

mare clausum singular
mares clausum plural

Morphology

mare + clausum

The phrase literally combines 'mare' (sea) + 'clausum' (closed), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer a basic sense of a 'closed sea'. However, the full legal/political meaning — a navigable sea under exclusive national jurisdiction and closed to other states — is a specialized extension not fully predictable from the simple literal combination, and the Latin form may reduce immediate recognizability for B1 learners. For these reasons it is partly but not wholly transparent.

Etymology

Mare clausum comes from the Latin words mare and clausum, meaning 'sea' and 'closed'. Imagine a country putting a gate around part of the ocean so other ships cannot enter; that's why mare clausum means a sea a country claims as its own and keeps others out.