Pelagic

//pəˈlæd͡ʒɪk// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any organism that lives in the open sea rather than in coastal or inland waters.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Living in the open sea rather than in coastal or inland waters.

    "Besides, seeing a shark in an aquarium tank is not the same as seeing a shark in the wild, in its natural, pelagic habitat."

  2. 2
    Of or pertaining to oceans.

    "Drifting idly around a broad oceanic arc, the bottle collides softly with tens of thousands of pelagic plastics all colonized by hard-shelled organisms, including barnacles, coralline algae, foraminifera and bivalve molluscs."

Adjective
  1. 1
    relating to or occurring or living in or frequenting the open ocean wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
oceanicbathymetricbathyorographicaldeep seadeep-seaeupelagic

Example

More examples

"The oceanic ecosystem includes the pelagic zone, the benthic zone, and the abyssal zone."

Etymology

From Latin pelagicus (and possibly pelagus); from Ancient Greek πελαγικός (pelagikós), from πέλαγος (pélagos, “sea”). By surface analysis, -pelag + -ic.

Related phrases

pelagic trawlpelagic zone

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