Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various tropical or subtropical evergreen salt-tolerant trees or shrubs especially of the family Rhizophoraceae, forming dense thickets along tidal shores and typically having well-developed aerial roots.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Bruguiera Rheedii, a small tree which yields a good tan-bark and a hard, durable, yellowish-brown wood;
- noun Heritiera littoralis, a tree of the family Sterculiaceæ. See
Heritiera and sundari. - noun A tree of the genus Rhizophora, chiefly R. mucronata (R. Mangle), the common mangrove, abounding on tropical shores in both hemispheres.
- noun Another plant of similar habit, especially a plant of the genus Avicennia.
- noun In zoology, the mango-fish.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) The name of one or two trees of the genus Rhizophora (
Rhizophora Mangle , andRhizophora mucronata , the last doubtfully distinct) inhabiting muddy shores of tropical regions, where they spread by emitting aërial roots, which fasten in the saline mire and eventually become new stems. The seeds also send down a strong root while yet attached to the parent plant. - noun (Zoöl.) The mango fish.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of various
tropical evergreen trees orshrubs that grow in shallow coastal water. - noun A habitat with such plants; mangrove forest; mangrove swamp.
- noun Plants of the Rhizophoraceae family.
- noun Trees of the genus Rhizophora.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a tropical tree or shrub bearing fruit that germinates while still on the tree and having numerous prop roots that eventually form an impenetrable mass and are important in land building
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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They say illegal fishing in mangrove forests and habitat destruction in the states of Orissa and West Bengal, in eastern India, has led to a steep fall in crocodile numbers, from several thousand a century ago to less than 100 in the early 1970s.
Archive 2007-06-24 Bill Crider 2007
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If you were a VC with a D-40 rocket grenade launcher, you'd hear the humming of the Swift boats and you'd go and hide in mangrove thickets, and put the rocket launcher on your shoulder, and kaboom!
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If you were a VC with a D-40 rocket grenade launcher, you'd hear the humming of the Swift boats and you'd go and hide in mangrove thickets, and put the rocket launcher on your shoulder, and kaboom!
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There are no walks; and if you go one way, you sink knee-deep in mangrove swamps; another you are covered with sand-flies; and a third is crawling up a steep mountain by a mule-path to get a glimpse of the sea beyond the lagoons which surround
The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton William Henry Burton Wilkins 1897
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With its legs buried underwater, the mangrove is a case study in evolutionary biology.
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In effect, few species can be considered exclusive inhabitants of mangroves, although many are most commonly found associated with mangroves, and it is only in this sense that they can be called mangrove fauna.
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It has been suggested that the viviparity of the mangrove is a survival of a very remote period in the development of the earth — that a mangrove swamp represents an age when the earth was enveloped in clouds and mist; and that with the gradual decrease in tepid aqueous vapour the viviparous habit, then almost universal, was lost, except in the case of this plant.
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They cut it in thin strips and hung it over the fire of the black mangrove, which is one of the smokiest woods on earth.
Dick in the Everglades A. W. Dimock
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Atlantic, I could not help recalling the mangrove swamps and lagoons of the tropic island in which my childhood had been passed, wondering the while, too, whether the _Josephine_ would not be reported as lost through the protraction of her voyage -- for she was expected to reach
The White Squall A Story of the Sargasso Sea J. [Illustrator] Schonberg
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It has been suggested that the viviparity of the mangrove is a survival of a very remote period in the development of the earth -- that a mangrove swamp represents an age when the earth was enveloped in clouds and mist; and that with the gradual decrease in tepid aqueous vapour the viviparous habit, then almost universal, was lost, except in the case of this plant.
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