Word.ws English Dictionary

ursal

ursal noun: the ursine seal or sea bear, better known as the northern fur seal, Callorhinus ursinus.

Noun

ursal (plural ursals)

  1. (archaic, rare) The ursine seal or sea bear, better known as the northern fur seal, Callorhinus ursinus.
    • One of these, the Ursal, an inhabitant of the shores of the North Pacific Ocean, […]1844, William Benjamin Carpenter, in the Popular Cyclopaedia of Natural Science, Zoology, volume 1, page 233
    • The Ursal (Ph. ursina, Gm. [Arctocephalus ursinus, F. Cuv. fig. 40.]—Eight feel long, no mane, varying from brown to whitish. From the north of the Pacific Ocean.1851, Georges Cuvier (baron), Edward Blyth, Robert Mudie, George Johnston, John Obadiah Westwood, William Benjamin Carpenter, The animal kingdom: arranged after its organization, forming a natural...

Adjective

ursal (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to a bear or bears.
    • Formerly, there must have been some kind of rule (to which I remember a striking exception), that if a peculiarly savage bear could be found in the naval service, he was selected as an agent for transports.... The subsequent encouragement of these ursal authorities was generally referable to...1837, Thomas Carlyle, “A Mixed Society on the Coast”, in Fraser's magazine, volume 16, page 201
    • He believed himself to be a bear, and would imitate the ursal growl, &c.: and the case did not appear to be hypochondriacal.1850, Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments: the text carefully printed from the most correct copies of the present authorized translation, including the marginal...

Examples of ursal in a sentence

  • The Ursal; a species of Seal, from the north of the Pacific Ocean.1852, Samuel Maunder, The Treasury of Natural History, or a Popular Dictionary of Animated Nature, page 34:
  • The sea-lions (Phoca jubata), the sea-bears (ursal seal), the shags (commorants), and penguins seemed to live in harmony, […]1883, The Shipwrecked Mariner, page 254:
  • The subsequent encouragement of these ursal authorities was generally referable to military commandeers, whose ignorance of nautical matters led them to extol services that had no merit...1837, Thomas Carlyle, “A Mixed Society on the Coast”, in Fraser's magazine, volume 16, page 201:
  • Our landlord's delight at our return was very great, he called us his dear sons, and said he knew we must come back again; he embraced us after the fashion of an ursal hug...1854, Our cruise in the Undine: the journal of an English pair-oar expedition through France, Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, Prussia, and Belgium...

Forms of ursal

pluralursals

Questions about ursal

What does ursal mean?
Ursal means the ursine seal or sea bear, better known as the northern fur seal, Callorhinus ursinus.
How do you use ursal in a sentence?
The Ursal; a species of Seal, from the north of the Pacific Ocean.
What part of speech is ursal?
Ursal can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of ursal?
The plural of ursal is ursals.

Words near ursal in the dictionary

  1. Urry
  2. Urrys
  3. urs
  4. Ursa Major
  5. Ursa Minor
  6. ursal
  7. ursals
  8. ursane
  9. ursanes
  10. Urschleim
  11. urself

Source and license

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