Seafood

How to spell seafood

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce seafood

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does seafood mean?

1. nounFish and shellfish eaten as food, especially creatures harvested from the sea.

Seafood in a sentence

• The coastal restaurant is famous for its fresh seafood platter.

• She is allergic to shellfish but eats other kinds of seafood without trouble.

Where does seafood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound formed from two ancient native words. 'Sea' descends from the Old English word 'sae', which goes back to a common Germanic root shared with the Dutch 'zee' and German 'See', all referring to a large body of salt water. 'Food' comes from the Old English 'foda', meaning nourishment, related to the verb 'feed' and ultimately to a Germanic root for feeding and fostering. The pairing of the two into a single word for edible marine creatures is comparatively recent, becoming common in the nineteenth century, especially in American usage, before spreading everywhere. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the only spelling point to remember is that it is written solid, with no space or hyphen, and that the long 'ee' sound in 'sea' is spelled ea, not ee.

How the word is built

• sea (the ocean)
• food (something eaten); a closed compound noun