Littoral
Alternative forms
Origin
From Late Latin littoralis, from litoris (genitive of litus). The doubled 't' is a late medieval addition, and the more classical litoral is also sometimes found.
Cognate to French littoral, Spanish litoral, and more distantly to English lido ("outdoor pool"), via Italian lido ("beach, shore").
Usage notes
Specifically refers to the water at the shore, rather than the land, particularly in the phrase littoral zone.
Synonyms
- (relating to the seashore) intertidal
Coordinate terms
Noun
littoral
(plural littorals)- A shore.
- 1921, Sir Charles Eliot...these Chams belonged to the Malay-Polynesian group and their distribution along the littoral suggests that they were invaders from the sea...
- The zone of a coast between high tide and low tide levels.
- 1907, w, The Dust of Conflict Chapter 6, The night was considerably clearer than anybody on board her desired when the schooner Ventura headed for the land. It rose in places, black and sharp against the velvety indigo, over her dipping bow, though most of the low littoral was wrapped in obscurity.
- 2006, w, Internal Combustion Chapter 2, Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia. This ceaseless industrial fueling caused the deforestation of an estimated fifty to seventy million acres of woodlands.
Synonyms
- (zone between high- and low-tide) intertidal zone, foreshore