Southern Oceann.
/ˌsʌðn ˈəʊʃn/, U.S. /ˌsəðərn ˈoʊʃ(ə)n/ 1. The southern portion of the earth's oceans or of one particular ocean; a southerly ocean. Cf. North Sea n. 2a.In later use chiefly as a descriptive name, with lower-case initials, rather than a proper name.
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1652 P. Heylyn Cosmographie iii. sig. Kkk2 Arabia hath..on the South, the main Southern Ocean.
1697 W. Dampier New Voy. around World Contents sig. A5v He stands over the Southern Ocean for the East Indies, and arrives at Guam, one of the Ladrone Isles.
1700 E. Howard Remarks New Philos. Des-Cartes iv. 306 That the Southern Ocean is salter than the Northern, can be effected from no other Cause, than that the Sea, in that Part of the World is Warmer than the other.
1725 D. Defoe New Voy. round World 54/2 An opening into the Indian or Southern Oceans.
1745 Compend. Libr. ii. vi. 246 The Cape of Good Hope has the Indian Sea on the East;..the Southern Ocean on the North.
1748 B. Robins & R. Walter Voy. round World by Anson i. x. 100 Being to the northward of the Streights of Magellan, we were assured that we had..arrived in the confines of the southern Ocean; and this Ocean being denominated Pacifick,..we doubted not [etc.].
1860 M. F. Maury Physical Geogr. Sea (ed. 8) v. §285 The hydrometer..shows that the water of the North Atlantic is, parallel for parallel, lighter than water in the Southern Ocean.
1885 W. Irving Spanish Voy. Discov. xxix. 179 When Vasco Nuñez from the mountains of Darien beheld the Southern Ocean revealed to his gaze, he considered its unknown realms at his disposal.
1917 C. F. Horne et al. Medieval China ii. 146 The Ruler of the Southern Ocean was Shu, the Ruler of the Northern Ocean was Hu.
1965 J. O. Thomson Hist. Anc. Geogr. ii. 77 It is not proven that he had any influence on Hecataeus, who appears to bring his Nile from the southern Ocean, or on Herodotus, who brings his from the west.
1968 C. Carrington Brit. Overseas (ed. 2) iv. 196 The island-studded southern ocean, covering nearly one-half of the surface of the globe, was explored and mapped during the eighteenth century.
1996 L. N. Shaffer Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500 i. 15 In the process of sailing across the thousands of miles of southern ocean, the Malay sailors evidently carried a number of plants from Asia to Africa.
2. The ocean surrounding Antarctica, south of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Also called Antarctic Ocean.The concept of an ocean around Antarctica was given formal recognition in Limits of Oceans & Seas (Internat. Hydrographic Bureau, ed. 2, 1937), but it was dropped from ed. 3 (see quot. 1953). It was reinstated in the proposed ed. 4 of 2000, but this was not published owing to lack of agreement among the member countries of what was now the International Hydrographic Organization. Nevertheless, the Southern Ocean is widely recognized under that name, although its northern boundary is variously defined (cf. Antarctic Convergence n. at Antarctic adj. and n. Compounds).
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1701 E. Wells Treat. Antient & Present Geogr. ii. 14 It would be a very great help..to have the Extent of the four general Seas..Universally settled and agreed on; so it might easily be done, by assigning to the Northern and Southern Oceans, all the Extent from their respective Poles to some certain (suppose 43) Degree of their respective Latitude, quite round the Globe; and all the intermediate Space to the Atlantick and Pacifick Oceans.]
1702 J. Kersey New Eng. Dict. at Ocean The Atlantick Ocean... The Hyperborean Ocean, or North sea... The Pacifick Ocean... The Southern Ocean; or South sea, which encompasses Magellanica and the continent under the South pole.
1714 J. Seller Pract. Navigator xi. 192 Africa is bounded on the East with the Red-Sea, on the West with the Atlantick Ocean, on the South with the Southern Ocean.
1827 H. Murray Adv. Brit. Seamen Southern Ocean 350 We drifted about..amongst the ice of the Southern Ocean, were afterwards driven into a bay on the west coast of Terra [sic] del Fuego.
1873 L. Mercier tr. J. Verne 20,000 Leagues under Sea ii. xiii. 236 [At 67° 39′ S.] Through the open window we could see the lower beds of the Southern Ocean... We were floating beneath the undulating bottom of the iceberg.
1910 Official Year Bk. Commonw. Austral. 1901–1909 iii. 53 Australia... On its north are the Timor and Arafura Seas and Torres Strait, on its south the Southern Ocean and Bass Strait.
1953 Limits of Oceans & Seas (Internat. Hydrographic Bureau) (ed. 3) 4 The Antarctic or Southern Ocean has been omitted from this publication as the majority of opinions received since the issue of the 2nd Edition in 1937 are to the effect that there exists no real justification for applying the term Ocean to this body of water.
1960 New Scientist 11 Feb. 356/1 In the Southern Ocean there is no great meridional current of warm ocean water to transport heat polewards like the Gulf Stream-North Atlantic Drift.
1974 R. Swale Children of Cape Horn (1975) xxiv. 218 In spite of being capsized and dismasted in the Southern Ocean..he had managed to jury-rig the boat and get to port.
2007 H. Svensmark & N. Calder Chilling Stars iii. 82 Intense westerly winds in the Southern Ocean..drive the great Circum-Antarctic Current.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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