littoral
/ˈlɪtəɹəl/
littoral adjective: of or relating to the shore, especially the seashore.
Adjective
littoral (not comparable)
- Of or relating to the shore, especially the seashore.
- The deep-sea fauna has probably been formed almost entirely from the littoral, not in the remotest antiquity, but only after food derived from the débris of the littoral and terrestrial faunas and floras became abundant.1885, H. N. Moseley, “The Fauna of the Sea-Shore”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 27
- Synonyms:
- intertidal, maritime
Noun
littoral (plural littorals)
- A shore, coastline, or coast.
- […] these Chams belonged to the Malay-Polynesian group and their distribution along the littoral suggests that they were invaders from the sea […]1921, Sir Charles Eliot, (Please provide the book title or journal name)
- The railway running along the littoral from Brighton westward to Portsmouth forms an important section of the L.B.S.C.R. (Central) secion of the Southern Railway.1946 January and February, G. A. Sekon, “The L.B.S.C.R. West Coast Section”, in Railway Magazine, page 14
- The zone of a coast between high tide and low tide levels.
- 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.1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 6, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
- 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.2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion
- Synonyms:
- intertidal zone, foreshore, littoral range
littoral meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Kannada
littoral in Hindi
- of or relating to the shore, especially the seashore
- तटीय taṭīya, तटवर्ती taṭvartī
littoral in Tamil
- நெய்தனிலத்துக்குரிய, கடற்கரை சார்ந்த, கடற்காரை அடித்தளம்
littoral in Bengali
- সমুদ্র
littoral in Kannada
- ಸಮುದ್ರತೀರ, ತೀರ ಪ್ರದೇಶ, ಕಡಲ ತಡಿ, ಕಡಲಕರೆಯ
Examples of littoral in a sentence
- More than sixty per centum of the population of Australia is settled in the States along whose littoral the Lyrebird ranges[.]1951, Ambrose Pratt, The Lore of the Lyrebird, Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens, page 17:
- It runs for the whole way along the flat, sandy littoral among coconut plantations, usually a mile or so inland.1955 May, H. P. White, “The Togoland Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 344:
Synonyms of littoral
- intertidal
- maritime
- intertidal zone
- foreshore
- littoral range
Forms of littoral
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | litoral |
| Noun | |
| plural | littorals |
Origin of littoral
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, Portuguese litoral, and more distantly to English lido (“outdoor pool”), via Italian lido (“beach, shore”).
Words formed from littoral
Phrases with littoral
Questions about littoral
- What does littoral mean?
- Littoral means of or relating to the shore, especially the seashore.
- What is littoral in Hindi?
- Littoral in Hindi is तटीय (taṭīya), तटवर्ती (taṭvartī). See Littoral meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use littoral in a sentence?
- More than sixty per centum of the population of Australia is settled in the States along whose littoral the Lyrebird ranges[.]
- What part of speech is littoral?
- Littoral can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce littoral?
- Littoral is pronounced /ˈlɪtəɹəl/.
Words near littoral in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: littoral (page history and authors); littoral (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); littoral (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); littoral (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-littoral.wav.
Cite this entry: “littoral.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/littoral. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.