Word.ws English Dictionary

zaratan

zaratan noun: in Arabic folklore, an extremely large (sea) turtle, the shell of which resembles an island.

Noun

zaratan (plural zaratans)

  1. In Arabic folklore, an extremely large (sea) turtle, the shell of which resembles an island.
    • […]turtle known as zaratans. Living for millennia, these slow-moving gentle giants dine exclusively on sea […] a zaratan's shell grows ever more complex as it ages.2019 June 18, Lindsay Cibos-Hodges, Jared Hodges, Draw Baby Beasties: Create Little Dragons, Unicorns, Mermaids and More, Penguin, →ISBN, page 86
    • […] turtle—a zaratan. On the zaratan's back were hundreds of tiny green frogs nestled in the seaweed, with bat wings and long reptile tails.2019 October 8, Megan Linski, Alicia Rades, Hidden Legends, The Air Omen, Crystallite Publishing

Forms of zaratan

pluralzaratans

Origin of zaratan

Ultimately from Arabic سَرَطَان (saraṭān, “crab”), possibly via Spanish zaratán.

Questions about zaratan

What does zaratan mean?
Zaratan means in Arabic folklore, an extremely large (sea) turtle, the shell of which resembles an island.
What part of speech is zaratan?
Zaratan is a noun.
What is the plural of zaratan?
The plural of zaratan is zaratans.

Words near zaratan in the dictionary

  1. Zarankiewicz function
  2. Zarankiewicz problem
  3. zarape
  4. zarapes
  5. Zarasai
  6. zaratan
  7. zaratans
  8. Zarate
  9. Zarates
  10. Zarathushtra
  11. Zarathustra

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zaratan (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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