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

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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.