Coral

How to spell coral

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce coral

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does coral mean?

1. nounA hard structure built up over time by colonies of tiny marine animals, often forming reefs in warm seas.
2. adjectiveOf a warm pinkish-orange to red colour, like that of red coral.

Coral in a sentence

• noun

  The divers photographed the bright coral along the reef.

• adjective

  She painted the spare room a soft coral shade.

• noun

  Warming oceans have bleached vast stretches of coral.

• adjective

  The bridesmaids wore matching coral dresses.

Where does coral come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek korallion, the name for the hard, often red skeletal material made by tiny sea creatures. It passed into Latin as corallum (also spelled corallium) and then into English through the Old French coral during the 1300s. For centuries the prized form was a deep red Mediterranean coral, polished and worn as jewellery, which is why 'coral' also became the name of a warm pinkish-red colour. The single 'r' and single 'l' are the spelling trap, since the word is easily muddled with 'corral', the unrelated fenced enclosure that came into English from Spanish. Keeping the marine 'coral' to one of each consonant helps separate the two.

How the word is built

• coral (from Greek korallion: the red marine substance)
• no productive affixes in modern English

Words that sound like coral

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• choral: Relating to, written for, or sung by a choir or chorus of voices.