Atlantic, a. and n.
(ætˈlæntɪk)
Also (4 athlant), 7 athlanticke, atlanticke, 7–8 -ick.
[ad. L. Atlanticus, a. Gr. ἀτλαντικός, f. ἀτλαντ-: see Atlas n.1 and -ic.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of or pertaining to Mount Atlas in Libya, on which the heavens were fabled to rest. Hence applied to the sea near the western shore of Africa, and afterwards extended to the whole ocean lying between Europe and Africa on the east and America on the west.
| 1601 Holland Pliny I. 51 This river [Guadiana]..falleth into the Spanish Atlantick Ocean. 1626 Cockeram, Athlanticke Sea, is the Mediterranean, or a part thereof. 1732 T. Lediard Sethos II. 4 The Phœnicians..pass'd..into the Hesperian or Atlantick ocean. 1878 Huxley Physiogr. 178 The southern part of the Atlantic basin. |
b. fig. Far-reaching, distant;
transf. in
U.S.: Eastern.
| 1650 H. More Enthus. Tri., etc. (1656) 112 Which no man were able to smell out, unlesse his nose were as Atlantick as your rauming and reaching fancy. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 430 Mr. Bailly will sooner thaw the eternal ice of his atlantick regions, than restore the central heat to Paris. 1800 Weems Washington (1877) 163 Northern and southern—atlantic and western. |
c. Of or pertaining to countries bordering on the Atlantic Ocean, in recent times
esp. with reference to the political alliances of these countries.
| 1776 H. Walpole Let. 17 Apr. (1904) IX. 349, I now submit to recall my thoughts to America... The army that was to overrun the Atlantic continent, is not half set out yet. 1931 H. G. Wells Work, Wealth & Happiness (1932) viii. 305 We of the Atlantic world are too disposed to be ungrateful to the vast experiments Communism has made. 1944 W. Lippmann U.S. War Aims 80 In addition to the United States, the United Kingdom, and France..the Atlantic Community includes..[the South American countries],..Australia, Belgium,..Canada, [etc.]. 1960 R. L. C. Fitz Gibbon Kissing had to Stop xii. 220 She [sc. Britain] could become..the junior partner of an omnipotent Atlantic bloc. 1961 Listener 5 Oct. 493/1 Granted that Americans are not interested in Atlantic union, the emotional value to them of European union is enormous. |
d. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
| 1839 S. Lit. Messenger V. 5/2 The packet owners have carried the Atlantic mail..for twenty years. 1858 Harper's Mag. Oct. 700/2 We had learned articles proving that the Atlantic cable could never succeed under the existing conditions. 1895 Kipling Devil & Deep Sea in Day's Work (1898) 141 Her crew signed and signed again with the regularity of Atlantic liner boatswains. |
† 2. = Atlantean.
Obs.| 1631 R. Brathwait Whimzies 139 His Atlanticke shoulders are his supporters. 1652 L. S. People's Liberty vi. 11 Neither can one man..be so Atlantick, as to bear upon his shoulders the government of the Universe. |
† 3. Of the nature or size of an atlas; atlas-like.
| 1768 Johnson in Boswell (1831) II. 539 The maps..fill two Atlantic folios. |
4. Applied by Blytt to one of the successive periods of vegetation in Scandinavia after the glacial period, and later by others to the climate of other areas.
| 1876 [see Arctic a. 3]. 1935 Discovery July 198/1 The following climatic phase of the Postglacial period, the ‘Atlantic Period’, was considerably damper than the Boreal. 1959 J. D. Clark Prehist. S. Afr. vii. 169 The Makalian Wet Phase probably equates in time with the warm Atlantic stage in Northern Europe, between c. 5,500 b.c. and c. 2,500 b.c. 1960 B. W. Sparks Geomorphology ix. 216 Godwin has distinguished the following phases in the development of the Fens... The pre-Boreal period..approximately 8300 to 7600 b.c...The Boreal period. From about 7600 to 5500 b.c... The Atlantic period. The period 5500 to 3000 b.c. was one of increasing dampness and of extensive peat formation. 1964 G. Manley in Watson & Sissons Brit. Isles: Syst. Geogr. 162 This event [sc. the breaking of the last land bridge between Britain and the continent] is commonly associated with the onset of ‘Full-Atlantic’ conditions, notably the mild winters that resulted from the broadening of the North and Irish Seas. |
5. Phrases:
Atlantic Alliance = Atlantic Pact; also the countries concerned in the Atlantic Pact;
Atlantic Charter, a declaration of eight common principles in international relations, drawn up by the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on behalf of the British Empire and the
U.S.A., at their meeting in the Western Atlantic in August 1941;
Atlantic Pact, an agreement made in 1949 to ensure the defence of countries with seaboards on the North Atlantic (
cf. N.A.T.O.);
Atlantic States, those of the United States situated on the Atlantic coast;
Atlantic Wall, the line of fortifications constructed by the Germans to defend the Atlantic coast of Europe in the war of 1939–45.
| 1958 New Statesman 15 Feb. 185/3 Does the Atlantic alliance come first—or the principles it is pledged to uphold? |
| 1941 Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. War 9 July–30 Sept. 150/1 The President of the United States and the British representative in what is aptly called the Atlantic Charter, have jointly pledged their countries to the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny. 1958 New Statesman 1 Feb. 130/3 The verbal flaying of the clumsy, the ruthless persecution of the unfortunate—these have more in common with Buchenwald than with the Atlantic Charter. |
| 1949 Times 19 Mar. 5/2 The Atlantic Pact is much more than an American guarantee of Europe..it is a cooperative venture which will call for equal efforts. |
| 1789 Deb. Congress U.S. (1834) I. 153 The policy of taxing the navigation of the Atlantic States for the purpose of encouraging their agriculture. 1832 J. P. Kennedy Swallow Barn II. xiv. 233 Old Nick..is falling into the sere and yellow leaf, especially in the Atlantic states. 1961 Kurath & McDavid (title) The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States. |
| 1944 Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. War 12 Apr.–26 Sept. 189/1 The first ramparts of Hitler's so-called Atlantic Wall were breached. |
B. n. The Atlantic ocean; also
fig. [For the 14th c.
athlante,
cf. F.
atlante, Atlas, also inhabitant of the mythic Atlantis (an island placed by the Greeks in the far West).]
| 1387 Trevisa Higden Rolls Ser. I. 53 Þe see of occean of athlant [oceanus Atlanticus]. a 1711 Ken Hymnotheo Wks. 1721 III. 331 Down on the Earth it in Atlanticks rain'd. 1865 Masson Rec. Brit. Philos. iv. 388 ‘Feelings’ or ‘phænomena of feeling’ is an indiscriminate Atlantic of a phrase. |
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Atlantic halibut n. a halibut found in the Atlantic;
spec. Hippoglossus hippoglossus, which is found in temperate waters of the North Atlantic and can grow to an exceptionally large size.
| [1883 Fitchburgh (Mass.) Daily Sentinel 19 Sept. 2/ It is on exhibition at the Atlantic Halibut company's wharf, and attracts the curiosity of a large number.] 1886 C. Hallock Our New Alaska p. vii (contents) Decrease of the *Atlantic halibut catch. 1946 Copeia 100 New southern record for Atlantic halibut..taken in a pound net at or near Reedville, Virginia. 2005 J. Diamond Collapse (2006) xv. 480 Among the most important fisheries that have already collapsed are Atlantic halibut, Atlantic bluefin tuna, Atlantic swordfish, North Sea herring [etc.]. |