Seston
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 All particulate matter suspended in bodies of water such as lakes and seas, including plankton, organic detritus, and inorganic material. countable, uncountable
"Depending on mesh size and the area of investigation, net samples contain a variable mixture called seston. […] Nowadays plankton stands for the living part of seston, detritus for dead organic and inorganic particles."
Example
More examples"Depending on mesh size and the area of investigation, net samples contain a variable mixture called seston. […] Nowadays plankton stands for the living part of seston, detritus for dead organic and inorganic particles."
Etymology
From German Seston, by surface analysis, Ancient Greek σηστός (sēstós, “sifter”, verbal adjective of σήθω (sḗthō, “I strain, filter”)) + -on. Compare plankton.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.