GREAT BARRIER REEF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Great Barrier Reef mean? 

• GREAT BARRIER REEF (noun)
  The noun GREAT BARRIER REEF has 1 sense:

1. the largest coral reef in the world; in the Coral Sea off the northeastern coast of Australia

  Familiarity information: GREAT BARRIER REEF used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GREAT BARRIER REEF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The largest coral reef in the world; in the Coral Sea off the northeastern coast of Australia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Instance hypernyms:

coral reef (a reef consisting of coral consolidated into limestone)

Holonyms ("Great Barrier Reef" is a part of...):

Australia; Commonwealth of Australia (a nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony)

Australia (the smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean)

 Context examples 

A landmark international study shows that the Great Barrier Reef has suffered 5 death events in the last 30,000 years.

(Major study reveals Great Barrier Reef’s 30,000-year fight for survival, University of Granada)

Half of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef system in the world, suffered catastrophic damage in a 2016 heat wave, followed by bleaching the next year.

(Loudspeakers used to attract fish back to dying coral reefs, SciDev.Net)

Marine life researchers from the UK and Australia are using the sounds of healthy sea life to attract fish and plankton, hoping to get them to help revive dying swaths of the Great Barrier Reef.

(Loudspeakers used to attract fish back to dying coral reefs, SciDev.Net)