Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • An inland sea lying between southern Kazakhstan and northwest Uzbekistan. Once the fourth-largest inland body of water in the world, it is fast disappearing because of diversion of its two sources, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A saline lake straddling the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border, that was once large, but that has shrunk to a quarter of its original size after the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which previously flowed into it, were diverted for irrigation purposes during the Soviet era.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a lake to the east of the Caspian Sea lying between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Kazakh арал (aral, "island"), referring to the more than 1,500 islands that once dotted its waters.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word Aral Sea.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.