sargasso

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A brown alga, of the genus Sargassum, that forms large, floating masses.

   “SARGASSO, the Sea-Lentile.”

   “Thus the productions of Jamaica, and other places bordering on the gulph of Mexico, may be firſt brought by the ſtream out of the gulph, inveloped in the ſargaſſo or alga of the gulph round Cape Florida, and hurried by the current either along the American ſhore, or ſent into the ocean in the courſe along the ſtream, and then by the ſet of the ſtream; and the prevailing winds, which generally blow two-thirds of the year, wafted to the ſhores of Europe, where they are found.”

   “A number of cryptogamic plants swim about at random in the waters, among which the most interesting, perhaps, in our present state of knowledge, is the sargasso, or gulf-weed of voyagers (Fucus natans), which is found in the Gulph of Florida, and some other parts of the ocean floating in masses or fields, many miles in length.”

   “There is no warm current, or if one, a very feeble one, flowing out of the South Atlantic. Most of the drift matter borne upon the ice-bearing current into that sea finds its way to the equator, and then into the veins which give volume to the Gulf Stream, and supply the sargasso of the North Atlantic with extra quantities of drift. The sargassos of the South Atlantic are therefore small.”

2. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Also Sargasso: a confused, tangled mass or situation.

   “Afghanistan is a sargasso of wrecks from earlier civilizations; buried in its earth are hordes of Greek coins, Aramaic inscriptions, Saljuq mosques, and Mazdakite fire temples, flaking away in their own dust, forgotten in valleys where the local villagers carry away their bricks for cattle folds.”

   “His [Philip K. Dick's] ideas provide diegetic anchors for digitally oriented directors [...] whose works might otherwise float off into a Sargasso of insignificance.”

   “In Viking Man's apartment, a large closet he's made into a movie library is strewn with reels of film. The reels have spooled into a sargasso of celluloid; a projector stares from the end of the closet.”

   “All night on the plane, I had slept fitfully, my mind clogged with a Sargasso of floating memories and disconnected images—from when I lived in New Zealand or first went to Sierra Leone.”

   “And so we floated. And later some crewmen got to a collapsible lifeboat that had drifted off right-side up, and they were able to raise and lash the steel-framed canvas sides, and then men began to pick the living from the vast sargasso of bodies, and they found us.”

3. (countable, uncountable)A part of an ocean or sea characterized by floating masses of sargassos, like the Sargasso Sea.

   “Of Sargassos or Weedy Seas. [...] [T]he most remarkable of them all, is that in the North Atlantic. [Christopher] Columbus passed through it on his first voyage of discovery to America. […] The sargassos of the southern hemisphere are not so well marked as this, nor are they as rich in drift or floating matter.”

   “[H]eld safe and sound, I'd find the South Equatorial at last, at last, and safe from all the Sargassoes, the Scillas and Charibs, I'd swoop beautifully and lightly, drifting with the sweet currents of the South down the edge of the Brazilian Highlands to the Waters of Peace.”

   “Feverish eyes of mariners weatherbeaten in a thousand voyages, burning eyes of jailbirds yanked from Andalusian prisons and embarked by force: these eyes see no prophetic reflections of gold and silver in the foam of the waves, nor in the country and river birds that keep flying over the ships, nor in the green rushes and branches thick with shells that drift in the sargassos.”

   “Few storms trouble a sargasso region, and rain rarely falls there even during the spring seasons. These conditions help create massive beds of floating vegetation, dominated by kelps and a weed called sargassum. [...] Of all the regions of the open sea, sargassos are the ones with the highest biological density, and potentially the most dangerous.”

4. (alt-of, alternative, figuratively)Alternative form of sargasso (“a confused, tangled mass or situation”).

   “I cannot bear the striking of your colors, that Sargasso of / passionate forms.”

   “His [Philip K. Dick's] ideas provide diegetic anchors for digitally oriented directors […] whose works might otherwise float off into a Sargasso of insignificance.”

   “His [William Shakespeare's] poems, like [John] Donne's and [John] Keats's and [Emily] Dickinson's, have not drowned in the Sargasso of discarded poetic diction.”

   “All night on the plane, I had slept fitfully, my mind clogged with a Sargasso of floating memories and disconnected images—from when I lived in New Zealand or first went to Sierra Leone.”

   “They were all shocked when the crews saw the lights and glinting steel of a ghost ship. It was as if he entered a Sargasso of lost and forgotten vessels, shadows out of his shattered past.”

name

1. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of Sargasso Sea.