Seawaters

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The saline bodies of water that cover large portions of the Earth, typically inhabited by a variety of marine life
2. The expansive, salt-laden liquid regions of the planet that serve as habitat for aquatic organisms
3. The vast aquatic environments characterized by salt content, often associated with oceans and seas, where diverse ecosystems thrive

Etymology: "Seawaters" is simply the plural of "seawater", so it is the form of that compound, which joins "sea" and "water". The compound goes back to Old English "sǣwæter", built from the same two elements, and it has close relatives across the North Sea region: Dutch "zeewater", West Frisian "seewetter", and Icelandic "sjóvatn" all mean the same thing. The plural suggests more than one body of salt water, the separate seas and oceans of the world taken together, rather than a single mass of it. Middle English spelled the word "seewater" and "se water", showing that the two halves were still being written apart for a long time before they settled into one word.

Synonyms: oceans, seas