ATOLL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does atoll mean? 

• ATOLL (noun)
  The noun ATOLL has 1 sense:

1. an island consisting of a circular coral reef surrounding a lagoon

  Familiarity information: ATOLL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ATOLL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An island consisting of a circular coral reef surrounding a lagoon

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("atoll" is a kind of...):

coral reef (a reef consisting of coral consolidated into limestone)

Instance hyponyms:

Bikini (an atoll in the Marshall Islands; formerly used by the United States as a site for testing nuclear weapons)

Eniwetok (an atoll in the Marshall Islands; site of an amphibious assault in World War II; later used temporarily by the United States to test atomic bombs)

Kwajalein (an atoll in the western Marshall Islands that was used as a Japanese air and naval base during World War II)

Midway Islands (an atoll in the Hawaiian Islands some 1300 miles to the northwest of Honolulu; site of an important United States naval base)

 Context examples 

A group of atolls and reefs in the North Pacific Ocean, about one-half of the way from Hawaii to Australia, south of Wake Island and north of Nauru.

(Marshall Islands, NCI Thesaurus)

A country in Southern Asia, occupying a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India.

(Maldives, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

A country in southern Asia, occupying a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India and north of the British Indian Ocean Territory.

(Maldives, NCI Thesaurus)

And there were the low Paumotus, and the high Marquesas; he saw himself often, now, on board trading schooners or frail little cutters, slipping out at dawn through the reef at Papeete and beginning the long beat through the pearl-atolls to Nukahiva and the Bay of Taiohae, where Tamari, he knew, would kill a pig in honor of his coming, and where Tamari's flower-garlanded daughters would seize his hands and with song and laughter garland him with flowers.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)