demersal
adjective, noun
demersal is an adjective meaning “That lives near the bottom of a body of water” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-E-M-E-R-S-A-L, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does demersal mean?
adjective
- 1
That lives near the bottom of a body of water.
- 2
Taking place near the bottom of a body of water.
demersal fishing [ = groundfishing]
noun
- 1
Any demersal organism, especially a groundfish.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of demersal
- more demersal comparative
- most demersal superlative
- demersals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is demersal?
Demersal appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 110,368th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Demersal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense living near the bottom of a body of water:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | démersal |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does demersal come from?
From Latin demersus, past participle of dēmergō (“to sink”); compare demersed.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).