Velella

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small, colonial marine organism that has a unique sail-like structure enabling it to float on the ocean's surface while often forming large aggregates
2. A type of gelatinous marine creature belonging to a colonial species that possesses a sail-like feature for buoyancy and is typically found collectively drifting on the ocean surface
3. This organism is an aquatic colonial life form characterized by a distinctive sail that allows it to navigate the sea and often congregate in large numbers

Etymology: Velella is the scientific name of a genus of small, blue, disc-shaped colonial hydrozoans that drift on the surface of the open ocean. Each animal carries a thin, translucent sail set diagonally across its top, which catches the wind and pushes the colony across the water, so the name now given to the whole genus is also the everyday name for the creature itself. The word was not coined for the animal's sail, however. It is a Latinized form chosen as a genus name by the naturalists who described these organisms, and the word therefore belongs to the taxonomic vocabulary built in the 18th and 19th centuries rather than to any older folk tradition. Its meaning is simply the taxonomic label, so the most striking fact about it is that the poetic image of a sailing creature came from the animal's appearance, while the name itself was a systematic choice.