kelp

See also: Kelp

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /kɛlp/, enPR: kĕlp

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlp

Etymology 1

From Middle English culp, culpe, of uncertain origin; possibly from Old English *colba, *colfa, from Proto-West Germanic *kolbō (“bulb, cob”), from Proto-Germanic *kulbaz (“round object, club”). Compare Middle High German kolbe (“clublike plant”), Old Norse kolfr (“bulb of a plant”).

Noun

kelp (countable and uncountable, plural kelps)

1. Any of several large brown algae seaweeds (order Laminariales).

   Synonym: oyster grass

   • 2021 June 26, “Why New England is going wild for wet weeds”, in The Economist‎, →ISSN:

     Underneath the area demarcated by the buoys, Ms Puckett plants kelp—a type of seaweed—on long ropes that resemble washing lines.

2. The calcined ashes of seaweed, formerly used in glass and iodine manufacture.

Hyponyms

• kombu

Meronyms

• stipe

Derived terms

• bladder kelp
• bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana, etc)
• feather boa kelp
• giant kelp
• golden kelp
• kelp bass
• kelp bed
• kelp crab
• kelpfish
• kelp forest
• kelp goose
• kelp greenling
• kelp gull
• kelp pigeon
• kelp salmon
• kelpwort
• stalked kelp
• sugar kelp

Descendants

• → French: kelp
• → German: Kelp
• → Irish: ceilp
• → Scottish Gaelic: ceilp
• → Spanish: quelpo

Translations

large seaweed of order Laminariales

Catalan: varec m Chinese: Mandarin: 海帶 / 海带 (zh) (hǎidài), 昆布 (zh) (kūnbù) Czech: kelpa f Dutch: zeewier (nl) n Faroese: tari m Finnish: kelppi, taarimainen levä French: laminaire (fr) f, kelp (fr) m, goémon (fr) m, varech (fr) m Galician: golfe (gl) m, soga (gl) f, golfeira f, carromeiro m German: Seetang (de) m, Tang (de) m, Kelp (de) n Icelandic: þari m Irish: ceilp f Japanese: 昆布 (ja) (こんぶ, konbu, こぶ, kobu), コンブ (konbu) Korean: 다시마 (dasima), 켈프 (kelpeu) Maori: rimurapa, kōauau, pakakā, pakakē Norwegian: tare m Polish: listownicowiec m Portuguese: alga marinha f Romanian: laminaria (ro) f, varec (ro) n Russian: бу́рая во́доросль f (búraja vódoroslʹ), ламина́рия (ru) f (laminárija) Scottish Gaelic: ceilp f Spanish: quelpo m Swedish: kelp (sv) Vietnamese: tảo bẹ Volapük: varäk Welsh: môr-wiail f pl

calcined ashes of seaweed

Danish: kelp (da) c Finnish: kalsinoitu merileväntuhka

Verb

kelp (third-person singular simple present kelps, present participle kelping, simple past and past participle kelped)

1. (intransitive) To gather kelp.
   • 2018, John Walter Sutherland, Resurrection Road, page 94:

     Just before we reached Seward the pilot got a radio message that a fishing boat in Thumb Cove had some kelp […] Neither of us had ever kelped before but there wasn't much to it, and we started bringing in full boxes back to Eads' barge.

Derived terms

• kelper

Etymology 2

From Middle English kelpe, kylpe, from Old Norse kilpr (“the handle of a vessel, loop”). Related to Old Norse kelpa (“otter trap”).

Noun

kelp (plural kelps)

1. (dialectal) A hook or crook by which a pot is hung over a fire.
2. (obsolete) A sheath.

Further reading

• kelp on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “kelp”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• Skeat, Walter William (1993): The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English kelp.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɛlp/

Noun

kelp m (plural kelps)

1. kelp

   Synonyms: goémon, varech

Spanish

Noun

kelp m (plural kelps)

1. alternative form of quelpo