sea change

noun

|Updated on: 10 Jul 2018

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of sea change

1 archaic : a change brought about by the sea

2 : a marked change : transformation

a sea change in public policy

See sea change defined for English-language learners

sea change was our Word of the Day on 10/25/2010. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of sea change from the Web

Not everyone, and not everywhere, but there’s been a sea change in the blood of us; one capillary in 20, maybe, carrying affirmation instead of shame, or at least the possibility of it, or at least the illusion.

— lindy west, SELF, "The Way We Talk About Bodies Has Changed. What We Do About It Comes Next.," 26 June 2018
For Joan Didion, magical thinking permitted a way of denying the material brutality of death and the flimsy vulnerabilities of the human form; a way to survive and perform normality against a sea change.

— georgina voss, The Atlantic, "Brexit Could Cripple Britain’s Ports," 20 June 2018
There’s been a sea change in morale in Harford County Public Schools in your time as leader.

— erika butler, The Aegis, "Harford School Board members laud Canavan's contributions as superintendent," 14 June 2018
That’s a sea change from the way drugs were developed and marketed 10 years ago.

— edward abrahams, STAT, "A focus on cost instead of value threatens the future of personalized medicine," 23 May 2018
Counter sit-ins represented a sea change in demonstrations, Chafe said.

— alex horton, Washington Post, "Before video of a Starbucks arrest, images of lunch counter sit-ins helped launch a movement," 17 Apr. 2018
Counter sit-ins represented a sea change in demonstrations, Chafe said.

— alex horton, Philly.com, "Before video of a Starbucks arrest, images of lunch counter sit-ins helped launch a movement," 17 Apr. 2018
In a sea change from years past, the Album of the Year category is stacked with hip-hop artists.

— raisa bruner, Time, "Everything You Need to Know About the 2018 Grammys," 22 Jan. 2018
The announcement is a sea change for Ethiopia, where the ruling EPRDF party has controlled almost every aspect of citizens’ lives, including the economy, rights and privacy since coming to power in 1991.

— matina stevis-gridneff, WSJ, "Ethiopia Opens Door to the World With Unprecedented Privatization Plan," 6 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sea change.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

In Shakespeare's The Tempest, a sea-change is a change brought about by sea: Full fathom five thy father lies ... / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change. This meaning is the original one, but it's now archaic. Long after sea change had gained its figurative meaning, however, writers continued to allude to Shakespeare's literal one; Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, and P.G. Wodehouse all used the term as an object of the verb suffer.