pelagic.

Relating to the open sea or to the water column rather than the seabed.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• pelagic fish
• pelagic waters

On the page

Pelagic fish followed the vessel beyond the shelf.

The researchers sampled pelagic waters above the abyssal plain.

Usage notes

Primary category: environment. Forms: Normally non-gradable as a habitat classification. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.