Word.ws English Dictionary

red sea

/ˌɹɛd ˈsiː/

red sea is the alternative letter-case form of Red Sea.

Proper noun capitalized: Red Sea

the Red Sea

  1. A long, narrow sea between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; links the Suez Canal with the Arabian Sea.
  2. A governorate in eastern Egypt
  3. (US) The states of the western and southern United States which consistently vote Republican in presidential elections.

Noun capitalized: Red Sea

Red Sea (plural Red Seas)

  1. A great quantity of blood.
    • And all this while the red sea of her blood Ebd with Leander.1598(?), George Chapman, Hero & Leander, iii. 323
    • The ghost of a creed […] may be laid, after all, only in a Red Sea of blood.1864, James Russell Lowell, Fireside Travels, section 219
  2. (slang, vulgar) (A quantity of) blood discharged through the vagina during menstruation.
    • Woman's menstrual blood, as symbolized in the "red carpet" or "red-sea of life," paved the way for the processions of queens, kings, brides and heroes.2001, Shoni Labowitz, God, Sex And The Women Of The Bible, page 62
    • Hydrogen peroxide: Use 3% (the kind you use for cuts) on the stains you get on your sheets when you're flagging and your lover has parted your red sea.2006, Laura Goodman, A Cleaning Manual for Dirty Divas, page 14
  3. (broadly) A great quantity of reddish liquid, such as wine.
    • Oyl-steep'd Anchovie, landed from his brine, Came freely swimming in red seas of wine.1645, Francis Quarles, The Shepheards Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues, vii, 83
    • […] will not get them gone for plain English, we will have one of Father Bacon's pupils from Oxford, to conjure [troublesome thoughts] away with logic and with Hebrew — Or, what say you to laying them in a glorious red sea of claret, my noble guest?1821, Walter Scott, Kenilworth. The pirate, published 1877, page 15

Forms of red sea

pluralRed Seas

Origin of red sea

From Middle English Red See, Reede See, Rede See, reade sea, from Old English Rēad Sǣ, a calque of Latin Mare Rubrum, itself a calque of Ancient Greek Ἐρυθρᾱ̀ θάλασσα (Eruthrā̀ thálassa); equivalent to red + sea.

Questions about red sea

What does red sea mean?
Red sea means a long, narrow sea between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; links the Suez Canal with the Arabian Sea.
What is red sea the alternative letter-case form of?
Red sea is the alternative letter-case form of Red Sea.
What part of speech is red sea?
Red sea can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce red sea?
Red sea is pronounced /ˌɹɛd ˈsiː/.

Words near red sea in the dictionary

  1. red scare
  2. red scares
  3. red scarf
  4. red scarfs
  5. red scarves
  6. red sea
  7. Red Sea bannerfish
  8. red sea bream
  9. Red Sea Governorate
  10. Red Sea Hills
  11. red seaperch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: red sea (page history and authors); Red Sea (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-Red Sea.wav.

Cite this entry: “red sea.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/red_sea. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.