Word of the Day

: December 15, 2015

natatorial

adjective nay-tuh-TOR-ee-ul

What It Means

1 : of or relating to swimming

2 : adapted to or characterized by swimming

natatorial in Context

This year's swim team has considerably more natatorial talent than have previous years' teams.

"Natatorial legs are modified for swimming, producing a feathered oar-like form, used by beetles and bugs that spend their lives in water." — Whitney Cranshaw and Richard Redak, Bugs Rule!, 2013

Did You Know?

The Latin verb natare, meaning "to swim," gave English the word natatorial and its variant natatory. It also gave us natant ("swimming or floating in water"); supernatant ("floating on the surface"); natation ("the action or art of swimming"); and last but not least, natatorium ("an indoor swimming pool"). A few common English words are related to this rather obscure bunch, among them nurture, nutrient, and nutrition, but these descend not from natare, but from nutrire, a Latin word (meaning "to nourish") that shares an ancestor with natare.