sea anemone
3
6.0
- noun
- /siː əˈnɛməni/
:
anémona de mar
- During our marine biology class, we learned that a sea anemone has tentacles that can sting predators.
- sea anemones and jellyfish
- sea anemones and coral
- sea anemones and starfish
Examples
-
Clownfish, as the movie suggests, have a special symbiotic relationship with certain species of sea anemone.
Academic text (2005) -
He's shown the saltwater fish aquarium, with its pulsing sea anemone and fluorescent pink starfish.
Fiction book (2001) -
For example, the higher the average temperature, the lower the incidence of sea anemones.
Academic text (1995) -
" I marveled at the starfish and sea anemones.
Blog text (34) -
He reminded her then of the sea anemones she had seen on the rocks in Olympic National Park.
Fiction book (1995) -
The original photo was taken underwater during a dive and is of a cleaner shrimp, which has a cleaning station among the tentacles of a large sea anemone.
Blog text (20) -
The tide pools at Weston Beach, while not the best on the coast, provide many kinds of snails and limpets, sea anemones, sea urchins, and some sea stars.
Academic text (2006) -
While snorkeling, I saw a colorful sea anemone swaying gently with the currents.
-
The clownfish is often found living among the delicate tentacles of a sea anemone for protection.
Synonyms
15
1.1
An animal that lives in the sea like a fish or dolphin
10
8.0
A sea animal with a ring of tentacles that looks like a flower and sticks to rocks or reefs
4
2.2
An animal that lives in the sea, like a fish or whale
3
2.6
An animal that lives in the sea, like a fish or octopus
1
1.0
A living thing that lives in the sea like a fish or whale
A sea animal like a sea anemone with tentacles that lives on rocks or reefs
A marine animal like coral or sea anemone that lives attached to rocks and never becomes a jellyfish
A marine animal that lives attached to the sea floor like a coral or sea anemone
A sea animal without bones that looks like a plant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is fully compositional: 'anemone' denotes a marine animal with tentacles and 'sea' simply specifies its habitat, so 'sea anemone' means an anemone that lives in the sea. This straightforward noun+noun formation is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would be able to derive the meaning.
Etymology
Sea anemone gets its name from how it looks: its ring of tentacles looks like the petals of a 'flower' called anemone, and because it lives in the sea people named it a sea anemone. That's why the name means a soft, flower-like animal in the sea.