sea king
1
9.9
- noun
- Literature
:
rey del mar
- The brave warrior sought the favor of the legendary sea king to secure a safe passage across the treacherous waters.
Examples
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The daughter of the great sea king is a very precious commodity.
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And the daughter of the great Sea King is a very precious commodity.
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I gotta get to the sea king.
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The sea king will never know.
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- That's the Sea King's doing.
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Flounder, go tell the Sea King what's happened.
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I've got an urgent message from the sea king.
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The sea king?
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"Return to me when you have news!" The sea king darted away, quickly vanishing into the emerald depths.
Fiction book (1992) -
They say this is when the Sea King calls his mermaid daughters together to lure men to their deaths.
Synonyms
356
3.3
A person who attacks and robs ships at sea
A sailor who attacks and steals from other ships, often in past wars
A person who steals from ships or coastal towns
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a male Viking pirate chief' is clearly built from 'sea' (body of water) + 'king' (male ruler), so a B1 learner who knows both words will infer a ruler associated with the sea. While the historical/Viking nuance is specific, the basic compositional idea 'king of the sea' follows common noun+ noun compounding patterns cross-linguistically, making it readily interpretable.
Etymology
The compound sea king comes from the image of a king of the sea who led ships on raids and controlled the waters. That's why the name came to mean 'a Viking pirate chief'.