Forms: 4– coral; also 4–8 -ale, 5–7 -all(e, 6–7 corral(l, 6–8 -ell, 5 cural(l)e, 6 curroll, 6–7 -all, 7 -el, -ell, (5 quyral). [a. OF. coral, coural (12ih c. in Littré), later corail = Pr. coralh, Sp. coral, It. corallo:—L. corallum, corălium, a. Gr. κοράλλιον red coral.]
1. A hard calcareous substance consisting of the continuous skeleton secreted by many tribes of marine cœlenterate polyps for their support and habitation. Found, according to the habits of the species, in single specimens growing plant-like on the sea-bottom, or in extensive accumulations, sometimes many miles in extent, called coral-reefs.
a. Historically, and in earlier literature and folk-lore, the name belongs to the beautiful Red Coral, an arborescent species, found in the Red Sea and Mediterranean, prized from times of antiquity for ornamental purposes, and often classed among precious stones. Pink coral: a pale variety of this.
c. 1305. Land Cokayne, 70. Of grene Jaspe and red corale.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 158. Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar A peire of bedes gauded al with grene.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. xxxii. (1495), 563. Corall is gendred in the red see and is a tree aslonge as it is coueryd with water, but anone as it is drawen out it torneth in to stone.
1483. Cath. Angl., 86. Curalle, corallus.
1535. Coverdale, Lam. iv. 7. Their colour was fresh read as the Corall, their beutie like the Saphyre.
1584. R. W., Three Ladies Lond., in Hazl., Dodsley, VI. 276. Coral will look pale when you be sick.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., cxxx. Currall is farre more red then her lips red.
1631. Jordan, Nat. Bathes, v. (1669), 34. Coral also being a Plant, and nourished with this juice, turns to a stone.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 116. Whole Forrests of Coral at the bottom of the Red Sea.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, France & It., I. 258. The coral here is such as can be seen nowhere else.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. III. ii. 87–8. Red coral … is found attached to rocks at the bottom of the sea…. Coral was for a long time regarded as a marine plant.
b. Afterwards extended to other kinds; at first named from their color, as White coral, originally applied to Madrepore, Black coral (Antipathes), Blue coral (Heliospora), Yellow coral, etc. In more recent times, many kinds have been named from the appearance of the aggregate skeleton, as Brain c. (Meandrina), Cup c. (family Cyathophyllidæ), Mushroom c. (Fungia), Organ-pipe c. (Tubipora), Star c. (Astroides), etc. See also MADREPORE, MILLEPORE.
a. 1600. Customs Duties (Add. MS. 25097). Currall, white or red.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, I. 3. She had … about her forehead a band of white Corrall.
1693. Sir T. P. Blount, Nat. Hist., 23. There are several sorts of Coral, but the two Principal are the White and the Red; but the Red is the best. There is also a Black and Yellow kind of Coral.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, IV. (1723), 196. The several Sorts of Mineral Corall.
1732. Lediard, Sethos, II. VII. 75. White and red coral, and of a sort of blue coral called Acoris.
1841. Emerson, Addr., Meth. Nat., Wks. (Bohn), II. 224. Nature turns off new firmaments … as fast as the madrepores make coral.
1847. Carpenter, Zool., § 1073. In the Meandrina cerebriformis (brain-stone coral), the whole mass … is nearly hemispherical. Ibid., § 1097. Tubipora musica … from the regular arrangement of its cylindrical tubes by each other’s side … is commonly termed Organ-pipe Coral.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. III. ii. 89. The Black coral is distinguished from the Red by the horny nature of the stem, and by its flexibility and smoothness.
White coral differs still more; the axis is stony or calcareous, but the polyps are contained in lamellated star-like cavities, and not in the fleshy cortical substance.
2. (with a and pl.) a. A particular species of the preceding, or of the colonial zoophyte of which it is the skeleton; also, a single polypary or polypidom in its natural condition (= CORALLUM).
The coralligenous zoophytes belong to the two classes Anthozoa (or Actinozoa) and Hydrozoa of the CŒLENTERATA (q.v.). Both these classes contain families of compound, aggregate or colonial zoophytes, secreting a continuous calcareous skeleton, which goes on growing by the constant development of new polyps or individual animals, each, like the bud of a plant, springing from and connected with the common stock. The Anthozoa are usually subdivided into two sub-classes, Alcyonaria (= Octacliniæ), to the colonial families of which belong the Red, Blue and Organ-pipe corals; and Zoantharia (= Hexacoralla), of which the division Antipatharia contains Black coral, and Madreporaria the Madrepores, Brain-corals, Mushroom-corals, Star-corals, etc., the chief reef-building corals. To the class Hydrozoa belong the Millepores, which are only distantly related to the other coralligenous animals, though their calcareous skeletons also form extensive reefs.
1579. T. Stevens, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 161. One of them pulled vp a currall of great bignesse and price. The currals does grow in the manner of stalkes vpon the rockes on the bottome, and waxe hard and red.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 97. Of all the Corals the Red is most in use.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., There is a kind of white coral [Madrepore] pierced full of holes, and a black coral named antipates.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., 90. Living corals exist and build compound polypidoms at far greater depths in our northern latitudes.
1887. Spectator, 7 May, 614/2. Nature when she builds an island out of corals.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 739. The calycles are in the majority of colonial corals connected by a calcareous coenenchyma.
b. A piece of (red) coral, as an ornament, etc.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 164. Ælianus saith, that there was an Elephant in Egypt, which was in love with a woman that sold Corrals.
1705. trans. Bosman’s Guinea, 24. One of his Wives had a new Fashion’d Coral on.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. Ind., I. 543. Various jewels, including pearls, corals, diamonds, and rubies.
3. A toy made of polished coral, given to infants to assist them in cutting their teeth. The name has been extended to toys of glass, bone, etc., used for the same purpose.
1613. Beaum. & Fl., Captain, III. v. Art thou not breeding teeth … I’ll … get a coral for thee.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect. (1851), 293. Some sucking Satir, who might have done better to have us’d his corall.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 1, ¶ 2. I … would not make use of my Coral till they had taken away the Bells from it.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 82, ¶ 2. Of all the toys with which children are delighted, I valued only my coral.
1840. Hood, Kilmansegg, Childhood. Cutting her first little toothy-peg With a fifty guinea coral.
fig. 1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, I. 3. Which things are corals to cut life upon.
4. In various fig. senses: † a. Applied to anything precious; cf. jewel, pearl. b. Anything of bright red color; blood, the lips, etc. † c. Applied to Christ as a ‘tree of pearl.’
a. 1310. in Wright, Lyric P., v. 25. Ase diamaunde the dere in day when he is dyht, He is coral y-cud with cayser ant knyht.
1595. Barnfield, Sonn., xvii. 12. His teeth pure Pearle in blushing Correll set.
1632. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Eromena, 93. Her amorous feaver … caused the corals and roses fade away from her … face.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, 33. Where she stood, Blood’s liquid coral sprang her feet beneath.
1649. J. Ellistone, trans. Behmen’s Epist., I. ii. 2. It is meer joy unto me to perceive that our Paradisicall Corall flourisheth, and bringeth forth fruit in my fellow-members.
1696. Lond. Gaz., No. 3207/4. Having … a small Wart on the Corral of the Upper Lip.
1875. Lowell, Poet. Wks. (1879), 464. His barefoot soldiers … Tramping the snow to coral where they trod.
5. transf. a. The unimpregnated roe or eggs of the lobster; so called from the color when boiled.
1768. Travis, in Penny Cycl., II. 513/2. That black substance … when boiled, turns of a beautiful red colour, and is called their [lobsters’] coral.
1805. Mrs. S. Martin, Eng. Housekeeper (ed. 3), 121. Take a good lobster and pick out all the meat; lay the berries, or coral, by themselves.
1844. J. T. Hewlett, Parsons & W., iii. Two fine lobsters, one full of coral, and the other of berries.
1880. Huxley, Crayfish, 31.
b. In the names of plants, as Garden Coral.
1882. Syd. Soc. Lex., Garden coral, the Capsicum annuum.
6. Short for CORAL-SNAKE.
[1784. Univ. Mag., 121. Among the Serpents, there are none so venemous … nor more common in this Isthmus [Darien] than the Corales.]
1852. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., I. iv. 152. The Cascabel, or rattle-snake, the Coral, and other vipers … frequent these … arid haunts.
7. attrib. (or adj.) a. Made or composed of (red) coral as a material.
1452. Will of J. Barker (Somerset Ho.). Quyral bedis.
1524. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), V. 179. ij. pair of currall bedes.
a. 1593. Marlowe, ‘Come live with me.’ Coral clasps and amber studs.
1883. G. Lloyd, Ebb & Flow, II. 151. She wore that pink coral set.
b. Coral-like, of the color of red coral.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, XII. Prol. 155. Phebus red fowle hys corall creist can steyr.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., I. i. 179. I saw her corrall lips to moue.
1633. Costlie Whore, II. i. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. 251. I loath to looke upon a common lip Were it as corral as Aurora’s cheeke.
1852. Beck’s Florist, 257. The Fuchsia … a brilliant coral tube and sepals, with corolla of intense violet.
c. Naturally consisting or formed of coral in the mass.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., Wks. 1753, III. 846. Amongst the coral-groves in the Verginian deep.
1713. Young, Last Day, I. 302. Thro’ coral groves, Thro’ labyrinths of rocks.
1790. Beatson, Nav. & Mil. Mem., I. 59. Having nearly reached her destination, she, through the ignorance of the pilot, run against a coral rock.
1819. Heber, Hymn. From Greenland’s icy mountains, From India’s coral strand.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., xx. (1852), 480. Some of the … encircled islands are composed of coral-rock.
8. General combinations: a. objective, as coral-fishing, -making, -secreting; b. instrumental, as coral-bound, -built, -cinctured, -girt, -paven; c. similative, as coral-red; d. parasynthetic, as coral-beaded, -buttoned, -rooted, -stamened.
1883. Gd. Words, 113. Gorgeous articles of native dress … *coral-beaded.
1872. Dana, Corals, ii. 129. A *coral-bound coast.
1884. J. Colborne, With Hicks Pasha, 259. The white, *coral-built town of Suakin lay like a pearl before me.
1848. Clough, Bothie, I. 41. Waistcoat blue, *coral-buttoned.
1785. T. Warton, Poems, 55 (Jod.). My *coral-cinctur’d stole.
1872. Dana, Corals, ii. 130. *Coral-girt islands.
1634. Milton, Comus, 883. Heave thy rosy head From thy *coral-paven bed.
1700. Dryden, Cock & Fox, 49. High was his comb, and *coral-red withal.
1882. Garden, 8 July, 17/1. Handsome bold buds of intense coral-red.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), II. 33. *Coralrooted Twayblade.
1846. Dana, Zooph., ii. § 9 (1848), 15. The *coral-secreting polyps.
1881. Mrs. Holman Hunt, Childr. Jerus., 139. A branch of the yellow-tasselled *coral-stamened acacia.
9. Special combinations: coral bead plant, Abrus precatorius, a native of India, bearing small scarlet egg-shaped seeds, used for necklaces and other ornamental purposes, also in India as a standard of weight; coral-bean, the seed of the flowering shrub Erythrina glauca, and of the bead- or necklace-tree, Ormosia dasycarpa; coral-berry, an American shrub (Symphoricarpus vulgaris) allied to the Snowberry, but having the berries deep red (Treas. Bot., 1866); coral-creeper, a species of Kennedya (K. prostrata), a leguminous plant bearing large bright red or pink flowers; coral-fish, a name for fishes of the families Chætodontidæ and Pomacentridæ which frequent coral-reefs; coral-flower, the flower of Erythrina: see CORAL-TREE; coral-grove, a dense mass of tree-like corals growing together; coral-insect, a popular but erroneous name for a coral-polyp; coral-island, an island of which the formation is due to the growth of coral; coral-lacquer, -lac, a red lacquer, forming a surface capable of being carved in low relief; coral-milk (see quot.); coral-mud, mud formed by decomposed coral; coral-polyp, one of the individual animals of a coral polypidom, a coral-zoophyte; coral-sand (cf. coral-mud); coral-serpent = CORAL-SNAKE; coral-shoemaker, a fish of the genus Teuthis, found in the coral reefs of the Indian Ocean; coral-stitch, a stitch used in embroidery, producing an irregular branched appearance like that of some kinds of coral; coral-stone, limestone or marble composed of fossil corals; coral-teeth = CORAL-ROOT (Miller, Plant-names); coral-worm = coral-polyp; coral-zone (see quot.); coral-zoophyte = coral-polyp. See also CORAL-PLANT, -RAG, -REEF, etc.
1860. Bartlett, Dict. Americanisms, *Coral Berry, the Indian Currant of Missouri.
1880. Günther, Fishes, 525. The small Zoophytes covering the banks, round which these *‘Coral-fishes’ abound.
1777. G. Forster, Voy. round World, I. 263. A beautiful erythrina, or *coral-flower.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., xx. (1852), 461. Those *coral-groves, which … had attained the utmost possible limit of upward growth.
1752. in Watson, Phil. Trans., XLVII. 454. Upon the coasts of Barbary … he had the pleasure of seeing the *coral-insect move its claws or legs.
1832. De la Beche, Geol. Man. (ed. 2), 149. MM. Quoy and Gaimard … paid particular attention to the *coral islands and reefs.
1841–71. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd., 128. The nutritive fluids, after elaboration by the polyps … are conveyed into the larger deep-seated parallel tubes: the nutrient fluid contained in these tubes resembles milk so much that it is known by the name of *coral-milk.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., xv. 254. The loose blocks are cemented into compact masses by means of coral-sand and *coral-mud.
1846. Dana, Zooph., ii. (1848), 15, note. The animals of a coral zoophyte are coral-animals or *coral-polyps.
1876. Page, Adv. Text-bk. Geol., iii. 68. Formed entirely of coarse *coral-sand.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1790), VII. ix. 215 (Jod.). The *coral-serpent, which is red, and whose bite is said to be fatal.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 152. It is like to … the Marble called Lapis Coraliticus, *Coral stone.
1876. Page, Adv. Text-bk. Geol., xx. 426. The ‘coral-stone’ has a sparry crystalline aspect.
1840. Clough, Dipsychus, II. iv. 140. But I must slave, a meagre *coral-worm.
1865. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms, s.v., In marine geology, the *coral zone … is the region of the calcareous and stronger corals, and extends from 300 to 600 feet.
1874. Dawkins, Cave-hunt., ii. 71. In the tissues of the *coral-zoophytes it assumes the form of stony groves.
