Portuguese man-of-war
Etymology

From Portuguese + man-of-war, from the resemblance of the organism’s float to a former Portuguese warship at full sail.

Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈpɔː.tʃʊˌɡiːz ˌmæn.ə(v)ˈwɔː/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈpoɹ.tʃəˌɡiz ˌmæn.ə(v)ˈwoɹ/, /ˈpoɹ-/, /ˈmæn-/
Noun

Portuguese man-of-war

  1. Physalia physalis, a marine cnidarian consisting of a floating colony of hydrozoans attached to a float, superficially resembling a jellyfish.
    Synonyms: bluebottle, man-of-war
  2. Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see Portuguese, man-of-war
Translations


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary