Other forms: corals
Coral is the hard, stony stuff on the sea floor that tiny animals build, branch by branch, over hundreds of years. Snorkellers hover above it, small fish dart in and out of it, and broken pieces wash up on the beach bleached white.
The animals themselves are called coral too: soft little polyps, each no bigger than a pencil tip, sitting in the stone they make. A coral reef is the whole structure, and coral bleaching is what happens when warm water drives the colour out of it. Coral is also a colour, a warm pinkish orange, taken from the red Mediterranean kind that people have carved into beads and rings for centuries. So a coral necklace and a coral reef share a shade and little else.
1nouncoralThe hard stony material built up under the sea by tiny animals.~25%
“The boat passed over a shelf of pale coral.”
2nounbuildThe tiny sea animals that build it.~73%
“Warm water kills the coral and the reef turns white.”
3nounpinkishA warm pinkish-orange colour.~2%
“She wore a coral scarf against the grey coat.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
coral is a reef-building sea creature.
Coral reached English from Old French coral, from Latin corallium, from Ancient Greek korallion. Further back the trail looks Semitic: compare the Hebrew and Arabic words for a small pebble or stone, and note that the word first meant the red kind found in the Mediterranean. An old folk etymology tied it instead to Greek kore, the maiden, and to Medusa. It is a lovely story and it is wrong.
Ancient Greek
κοράλλιον — coral
Latin
corallium
Old French
coral
English, today
coral
From Old French coral (French corail), from Latin corallium, from Ancient Greek κοράλλιον (“coral”). Probably ultimately of sem - origin, compare Hebrew גּוֹרָל (“small pebble”), Arabic جَرَل (“small stone”), originally referring to the red variety found in the Mediterranean. Since ancient times, a common folk etymology, accepted by some earlier scholars, connected the word instead to Ancient Greek κόρη (referring to Medusa). Beekes mentions both theories and considers the Semitic one convincing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA