Meaning & use
pelagic
Last updated
Meaning
adjectivebefore a nounbiology
Living or happening in the open sea, far from the shore and away from the seabed.
Grammar: Almost always goes before a noun: pelagic fish, pelagic birds.
Tuna and mackerel are pelagic fish that travel in large schools.
Pelagic seabirds spend most of the year far from land.
Scientists studied the pelagic zone of the Atlantic for changes in plankton.
Common combinations
- pelagic fish
- Sardines are pelagic fish caught near the surface.
- pelagic zone
- Sunlight reaches only the upper part of the pelagic zone.
- pelagic birds
- Albatrosses are pelagic birds that rarely visit land.
- pelagic fishery
- The pelagic fishery targets herring and anchovy.
- pelagic species
- Many pelagic species migrate long distances.
Synonyms and how they differ
- oceanic
- Oceanic is broader, meaning relating to the ocean in general, whereas pelagic stresses living in open water away from shore and seabed.
- open-sea
- Open-sea is a plain compound that conveys the same location without the scientific tone of pelagic.
- marine
- Marine covers anything relating to the sea, including coastal and seabed life, so it is much less specific than pelagic.
Opposites
Word family
- pelagos noun
- Greek for sea, the root of the word
- pelagic zone noun
- the open water of the sea
- epipelagic adjective
- relating to the sunlit upper layer of the sea
- bathypelagic adjective
- relating to deep dark open water
Commonly confused: pelagic or benthic? pelagic or pelagian?
pelagic vs benthic
Benthic describes life on the seabed, the opposite zone from the open water that pelagic describes.
pelagic vs pelagian
Pelagian refers to a follower of the theologian Pelagius and has nothing to do with the sea.
Practice
Which animal is the best example of a pelagic fish?
Choose one answer.
Tuna live and swim in open water, which is what pelagic means. Flounders live on the seabed, crabs live on the shore, and catfish in rivers are not marine.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pelagic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.