/ English Dictionary

REEF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

One of several strips across a sail that can be taken in or rolled up to lessen the area of the sail that is exposed to the wind

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

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

slip; strip (artifact consisting of a narrow flat piece of material)

Holonyms ("reef" is a part of...):

canvas; canvass; sail; sheet (a large piece of fabric (usually canvas fabric) by means of which wind is used to propel a sailing vessel)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A rocky region in the southern Transvaal in northeastern South Africa; contains rich gold deposits and coal and manganese

Synonyms:

Rand; Reef; Witwatersrand

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

part; region (the extended spatial location of something)

Holonyms ("Reef" is a part of...):

Transvaal (a province of northeastern South Africa originally inhabited by Africans who spoke Bantu; colonized by the Boers)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A submerged ridge of rock or coral near the surface of the water

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

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

ridge (a long narrow natural elevation or striation)

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

coral reef (a reef consisting of coral consolidated into limestone)

Derivation:

reefy (full of submerged reefs or sandbanks or shoals)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reduce (a sail) by taking in a reef

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "reef" is one way to...):

reduce; shrink (reduce in size; reduce physically)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Roll up (a portion of a sail) in order to reduce its area

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "reef" is one way to...):

furl; roll up (form into a cylinder by rolling)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Lower and bring partially inboard

Example:

reef the sailboat's mast

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "reef" is one way to...):

bring down; get down; let down; lower; take down (move something or somebody to a lower position)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

We reefed the fore-sail and set him, and hauled aft the fore-sheet; the helm was hard a-weather.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

'Up with the jib, reef the tops'l halliards, helm hard alee, and man the guns!' roared the captain, as a Portuguese pirate hove in sight, with a flag black as ink flying from her foremast. 'Go in and win, my hearties!' says the captain, and a tremendous fight began. Of course the British beat—they always do.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I make bold to say that the man who can carry these objects out with success has deserved better of the country than the officer of a battleship, tacking from Ushant to the Black Rocks and back again until she builds up a reef with her beef-bones.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semi-circle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

However, the study also sheds light on the reef’s high sensitivity to sediment input and poor water quality.

(Major study reveals Great Barrier Reef’s 30,000-year fight for survival, University of Granada)

Radford, however, cautions that just bringing fish back to degraded reefs will not reverse the degradation seen on many coral reefs.

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

The researchers found that reefs with higher copper concentrations didn’t recover from disease as quickly.

(Sea fan corals face new threat in warming ocean: copper, National Science Foundation)

Microorganisms play important roles in the health and protection of coral reefs, but exploring these roles can be difficult because of the lack of unspoiled reef systems throughout the global ocean.

(Microbes reflect the health of coral reefs, National Science Foundation)

In some cases the titles had been altered: "Finis," for instance, being changed to "The Finish," and "The Song of the Outer Reef" to "The Song of the Coral Reef."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

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