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You're most likely to encounter littoral in contexts relating to the military and marine sciences. A littoral combat ship is a fast and easily maneuverable combat ship built for use in coastal waters. And in marine ecology, the littoral zone is a coastal zone characterized by abundant dissolved oxygen, sunlight, nutrients, and generally high wave energies and water motion. Littoral can also be found as a noun referring to a coastal region or, more technically, to the shore zone between the high tide and low tide points. The adjective is the older of the two, dating from the mid-17th century; the noun dates from the early 19th century. The word comes to English from Latin litoralis, itself from litor- or litus, meaning "seashore."
Synonyms
Examples of littoral in a Sentence
Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Feb. 2024
Beijing would have the power to complicate U.S. access to East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean—the littoral of the most populous, economically active part of the world.
—Andrew S. Erickson, Foreign Affairs, 16 Feb. 2024
Between refueling and maintenance stops, the $362 million littoral combat ship intercepted over 3,300 pounds of cocaine and 3,895 pounds of marijuana.
—Craig Hooper, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2024
The Navy’s Independence-class littoral combat ships have the same draft.
—Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Feb. 2024
The test was part of an effort to prove the ability of littoral combat ships to defend themselves and to attack enemy targets.
—Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Oct. 2023
The roughly $500 million Augusta was designed to operate at high speeds in near-shore, or littoral waters, and do such things as find sea mines and track submarines.
—Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Sep. 2023
Some of it migrates toward other beaches in part of a complex phenomenon known as littoral drift.
—Jill Cowan, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Sep. 2023
The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Jackson (LCS 6) transits the South China Sea during routine operations.
—Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 18 Aug. 2023
Soner Cagaptay, Foreign Affairs, 19 Feb. 2024
The massive polities of the Eurasian littoral had enough surplus worthy of stealing on the part of its rulers.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 24 June 2013
The historical lands of the Swahili are on east Africa’s Indian Ocean littoral.
—John M. Mugane, Quartz, 5 Apr. 2022
Anyone who went to the east African littoral could choose to become Swahili, and many did.
—John M. Mugane, Quartz, 5 Apr. 2022
Now, in a distracted world, China proudly touts the efficiency of its surveillance state while continuing to build up its military and pursue its ambitious efforts to gain a strategic advantage along the Asian littoral.
—Lewis Libby, National Review, 6 May 2021
Thanksgiving along the Potomac littoral seemed a little emptier this year without Rob Odle, who died on October 2 after a tough fight with cancer.
—George Weigel, National Review, 2 Dec. 2019
Specifically, at a time when military strategists assessed that the greatest threats to Chinese security were coming from the sea off China’s littorals, the PLA was still dominated institutionally and doctrinally by the ground forces.
—Bloomberg.com, 18 May 2017
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'littoral.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near littoral
Cite this Entry
“Littoral.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/littoral. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.
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littoral
1 of 2 adjective
littoral
2 of 2 nounLegal Definition
littoral
adjective
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