ATOLL
What does "ATOLL" mean?
A ring-shaped coral reef or island enclosing a lagoon.
Meanings
- A circular or horseshoe-shaped coral reef surrounding a central lagoon. From the air, the atoll looked like a thin green bracelet on the blue.
Did you know?
- Charles Darwin cracked the atoll puzzle in 1842: a reef keeps building upward as the volcanic island at its center sinks, leaving a ring of coral around an empty lagoon.
- 'Atoll' is one of the few everyday English words borrowed from Dhivehi, the language of the Maldives - a nation built almost entirely of atolls.
Word origin
From 'atolu' in Dhivehi, the language of the Maldives, where atolls are abundant; brought into English by 19th-century naturalists and popularized by Charles Darwin.
Remember it
ATOLL = A + TOLL; picture paying a 'toll' of coral to ring a lagoon, with the double L drawn as two palm trees on the rim.
A little poem
The island went down;
the reef kept reaching for light-
a ring of held breath.
haiku
What it teaches
Sometimes what looks like an empty ring is just the shape grief leaves when the center sinks away.
Quick facts
What does ATOLL mean?
A ring-shaped coral reef or island enclosing a lagoon.
Is ATOLL a valid word?
Yes — ATOLL is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is ATOLL?
ATOLL has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does ATOLL come from?
From 'atolu' in Dhivehi, the language of the Maldives, where atolls are abundant; brought into English by 19th-century naturalists and popularized by Charles Darwin.
What can ATOLL teach us?
Sometimes what looks like an empty ring is just the shape grief leaves when the center sinks away.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.