Word.ws English Dictionary

mareel

UK/ˈmɑːɹiːl/US/mɑˈɹil/

mareel noun: seafire, phosphorescence on the ocean, especially around the Shetland Islands.

Noun

mareel (uncountable)

  1. (Shetland) Seafire, phosphorescence on the ocean, especially around the Shetland Islands.
    • […] as bright As the sheenin' mareel o' the sea.1892, George Stewart, Shetland Fireside Tales: Or, The Hermit of Trosswickness, page 239
    • […] rushing towards the opposite shore like a streak of mareel […]1898 October 15, Shetland News

Origin of mareel

From an unattested Norn term *mareld, from Old Norse mǫrueldr, from marr (“sea”) + eldr (“fire”). Compare Icelandic maurildi, Swedish mareld.

Questions about mareel

What does mareel mean?
Mareel means seafire, phosphorescence on the ocean, especially around the Shetland Islands.
What part of speech is mareel?
Mareel is a noun.
How do you pronounce mareel?
Mareel is pronounced /ˈmɑːɹiːl/ (UK).

Words near mareel in the dictionary

  1. marecottite
  2. Maredia
  3. Maredias
  4. Maree
  5. Mareeba
  6. mareel
  7. Marefield
  8. Mareham le Fen
  9. Marehan
  10. Marehay
  11. Marek

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mareel (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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Cite this entry: “mareel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mareel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.