seal

UK/siːl/US/siːl/

nounB14 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,888 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: sealed, seals, sealing

A seal is the smooth grey sea animal that drags itself onto a rock, barks, and lies in the sun with its eyes shut. Round cold coasts you see their heads bobbing out beyond the waves; at the zoo you see them clapping for fish.

One other word shares the spelling and has nothing to do with the animal, though it covers a lot of ground. A seal is the mark pressed into wax or stamped on paper to show a document is genuine, which is where the seal of approval and sealing a deal come from — and it is also the ring of rubber or wax that shuts a thing tight: the seal on a jam jar, the seal round the bath. To seal is what you do with one: you seal an envelope, seal a crack, seal a box with tape. The verb is stronger than it looks: sealed means nothing gets in or out, so a door you have merely shut is not sealed.

Definitions of seal

1nounsealA sea animal with flippers and a thick coat that swims in cold water and comes ashore on rocks.B1~28%
“A seal slid off the rock into the water.”
- Said"Look, a seal! Just there, by the rocks. Can you see its head?"
- WrittenThe seals hauled themselves onto the sand at low tide and lay there like dropped bags.
- UsedWatch seals from a distance; a mother will abandon a pup that smells of people.
- ContrastA seal, not a fish. A fish breathes in water and stays there; a seal breathes air and comes ashore. fish →
- Not thisTo seal a jar is another word entirely. This seal is the animal with whiskers.
- SimplyThe seal swims in the sea. It is big and fat.
Patterna grey / harbour seal · a seal pup / colony · seals bask / haul out · seal watching
2verbcloseTo close something so tightly that nothing can get in or out.B1~19%
“Seal the box with tape before you post it.”
- Said"Make sure you seal the bag, or the biscuits go soft."
- WrittenShe sealed the jars while the jam was still hot and lined them up on the shelf.
- UsedKeep sealed. Once opened, eat within three days.
- ContrastSeal, not close. You close a door; you seal a jar so tight that nothing gets in. close →
- SimplyDo not let air in. Seal the box.
Patternseal + noun (jar, bag, box) · seal sth tightly · a sealed container · seal in the flavour
synonyms: close, shut
3nounstripThe strip or ring that keeps a container or a joint airtight.B2~2%
“The seal round the fridge door had perished.”
4nounstampA design pressed into wax or stamped on paper to prove a document is genuine.B2~51%
“The letter still carried the king's seal.”
synonyms: stamp

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 149 sentences found in the wild and placed 96 of them on a sense (53 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

SEAl → it starts with the SEA it lives in

The word starts with sea, and so does its life: it swims under the cold water, closed up so tight in its skin that not a drop gets in — sealed, like a bottle with its top on.

hooks ontosea

Phrases it lives in

seal of approval — official backing from somebody whose word carries weight
seal the deal — do the last thing that makes an agreement final
my lips are sealed — I will not tell anyone

Also practised as

Where it comes from

Only one of the seals is an animal, and it is the oldest: Old English seolh, from Proto-Germanic *selhaz, cousin to Icelandic selur and Danish sæl. The seal you press into wax came in later through Anglo-Norman, from Latin sigillum, the little version of signum, a sign — a relative of sign and a doublet of sigil. You seal a letter with a seal, and the rubber ring round a jar is that same word again.

urj-fin-pro
*šülkeš
Proto-Indo-European
*selk- — to pull
Proto-Germanic
*selhaz
Proto-West Germanic
*selh
Old English
seolh
Middle English
sel
English, today
seal

From Middle English sel, from an inflectional form of Old English seolh, from Proto-West Germanic selh, from Proto-Germanic selhaz (compare Scots selch,selkie, frr selich, Middle Dutch seel, zēle, Old High German selah, Danish sæl, Middle Low German sale, Icelandic selur), either from Proto-Indo-European selk- (“to pull”) (compare dialectal English sullow (“plough”)) or from early urj-fin-pro šülkeš (later hülgeh, compare dialectal Finnish hylki, standard hylje, Estonian hüljes).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Animals, A Man Called Ove, Containers & Packaging

First appears in chapter 17 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

seal in the wild

All true seals are members of the family Phocidae ().
Earless seal
Seals range in size from the 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and 45 kg Baikal seal to the 5 m and 3,200 kg southern elephant seal.
Pinniped
Filing under seal is a procedure allowing sensitive or confidential information to be filed with a court without becoming a matter of public record.
Under seal
The court generally must give permission for the material to remain under seal.
Under seal
The State Emblem of India is an official seal of the Government of India.
State Emblem of India

1 / 5

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the seolh family

seal

seal — used about once every 225 pages · #1,888 · point at the bar for the others

Definitions of seal

1nounsealA sea animal with flippers and a thick coat that swims in cold water and comes ashore on rocks.B1~28%

“A seal slid off the rock into the water.”

Said"Look, a seal! Just there, by the rocks. Can you see its head?"
WrittenThe seals hauled themselves onto the sand at low tide and lay there like dropped bags.
UsedWatch seals from a distance; a mother will abandon a pup that smells of people.
ContrastA seal, not a fish. A fish breathes in water and stays there; a seal breathes air and comes ashore. fish →
Not thisTo seal a jar is another word entirely. This seal is the animal with whiskers.
SimplyThe seal swims in the sea. It is big and fat.

Patterna grey / harbour seal · a seal pup / colony · seals bask / haul out · seal watching

2verbcloseTo close something so tightly that nothing can get in or out.B1~19%

“Seal the box with tape before you post it.”

Said"Make sure you seal the bag, or the biscuits go soft."
WrittenShe sealed the jars while the jam was still hot and lined them up on the shelf.
UsedKeep sealed. Once opened, eat within three days.
ContrastSeal, not close. You close a door; you seal a jar so tight that nothing gets in. close →
SimplyDo not let air in. Seal the box.

Patternseal + noun (jar, bag, box) · seal sth tightly · a sealed container · seal in the flavour

synonyms: close, shut

3nounstripThe strip or ring that keeps a container or a joint airtight.B2~2%

“The seal round the fridge door had perished.”

4nounstampA design pressed into wax or stamped on paper to prove a document is genuine.B2~51%

“The letter still carried the king's seal.”

synonyms: stamp

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 149 sentences found in the wild and placed 96 of them on a sense (53 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.