sargasso
(sɑːˈgæsəʊ)
Forms: 7 sargossa, -o, saragossa, 7–9 sargaso, (8 sargazo), 6– sargasso.
[a. Pg. sarga{cced}o, whence Sp. sargazo, F. sargasse (mod.L. Sargassum as generic name).]
a. = gulf-weed; also a mass or a species of this. Also fig., esp. in sense ‘a confused or stagnant mass’.
| 1598 W. Phillip Linschoten i. xcv. 176/1 Then wee entred into the sea, called Sergasso, which is all couered with hearbes... The hearbe is like Samper, but yellow of colour... The Portingalles call it Sargasso, because it is like the herbes that groweth in their welles in Portingall, called Sargasso. 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 19 About the Cape Sargassoes and Trumbaes floate fifty leagues into the Seas. 1687 New Atlantis i. 169 The watry Field, Spread with Sargossa. 1688–9 Sloane Voy. Eng. 26 Mar. in Jamaica (1725) II. 342 We saw much Saragossa a floating here, called by the Seamen Gulf-weed. 1760–72 tr. Juan & Ulloa's Voy. (1772) II. 337 The sea was covered with a kind of weed called Sargasso, which pickled, is by many thought equal to Samphire. 1835–6 [see gulf-weed]. 1855 Maury Phys. Geog. ii. §132 There is in each ocean a Sargasso into which all drift matter..finds its way. 1871 Kingsley At Last i, The Sargassos..are a genus of themselves and by themselves. |
| fig. 1934 Dylan Thomas 18 Poems 12 The dry Sargasso of the tomb Gives up its dead to such a working sea. 1968 A. C. Clarke 2001: Space Odyssey xlii. 206 It had swept him across the Galaxy, and dumped him..in this celestial Sargasso. 1976 Listener 12 Feb. 182/3, I started the week with a careful schedule and ended in bed with 'flu, lost in a Sargasso of phone-ins, pop, news, avant-garde operas and the reminiscences of David Niven. 1977 Mystery Writers' Choice 62, I waited..adrift in a sargasso of conflicting feelings. |
b. attrib., as
sargasso bed,
sargasso weed;
Sargasso Sea (see
quot. 1855; also
fig.).
| 1830 Philos. Mag. VIII. 459 In the North Atlantic Ocean, coming from the south, you fall in about the tropic with the Sargasso weeds. 1855 Maury Phys. Geogr. Sea (1859) §13 Midway the Atlantic, in the triangular space between the Azores, Canaries, and the Cape de Verd Islands, is the Sargasso Sea. 1855 Kingsley Westw. Ho! iii, All around floated the sargasso beds, clogging her bows. 1885 A. Brassey The Trades 168 The patches of sargasso weed that floated past. 1961 P. Solomon in B. E. Flaherty Psychophysiol. Aspects Space Flight iii. 275 Deprived of sensory input, the mind is cut adrift and regresses inexorably into that Sargasso Sea of the primary process, where time disappears,..where vivid, multicolored hallucinations swirl and befuddle the senses. 1966 C. H. Hapgood Maps of Anc. Sea Kings ii. 25 We found ourselves in a veritable Sargasso Sea of uncertainties. 1966 J. Rhys (title) The wide Sargasso Sea. 1979 P. O'Connor Into Strong City i. xix. 68, I was experiencing a severe London pea-soup fog... I swam through an impenetrable ochre sargasso sea. |