CORAL REEF

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does coral reef mean? 

• CORAL REEF (noun)
  The noun CORAL REEF has 1 sense:

1. a reef consisting of coral consolidated into limestone

  Familiarity information: CORAL REEF used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CORAL REEF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A reef consisting of coral consolidated into limestone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("coral reef" is a kind of...):

reef (a submerged ridge of rock or coral near the surface of the water)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "coral reef"):

atoll (an island consisting of a circular coral reef surrounding a lagoon)

barrier reef (a long coral reef near and parallel to the shore)

cay; Florida key; key (a coral reef off the southern coast of Florida)

Instance hyponyms:

Great Barrier Reef (the largest coral reef in the world; in the Coral Sea off the northeastern coast of Australia)

 Context examples 

In coral reef ecosystems, microorganisms are essential for recycling nutrients that are important to reef organisms - transforming bits of organic matter into nitrogen and phosphorus, for example.

(Bacteria living near coral reefs change in synchrony across distances, National Science Foundation)

But as he watched it grow in definiteness he saw that it was a coral reef smoking in the white Pacific surges.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The team collected more than 400 water samples from 60 coral reef sites across the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

(Too much algae and too many microbes threaten coral reefs, NSF)

The idea behind ‘acoustic enrichment’ is that this can help kick-start coral reef recovery.

(Loudspeakers used to attract fish back to dying coral reefs, SciDev.Net)

Although one overarching conclusion of ocean acidification studies is that different species respond differently to elevated CO2 conditions, similar results have been reported in studies with different coral reef species.

(Fish larvae lose their way to safety in acidified oceans, SciDev.Net)