noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   All organisms in the ocean that are capable of swimming independently of currents. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   the aggregate of actively swimming animals in a body of water ranging from microscopic organisms to whales wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

benthoscetaceandolphinfishfrykipper

Etymology

From German Nekton which was coined in 1890 by Ernst Haeckel. By surface analysis, Ancient Greek νηκτός (nēktós, “swimming”) + -on.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.