free-swimming

[ free-swim-ing ]

adjectiveZoology.
  1. (of aquatic organisms) not attached to a base nor joined in a colony; capable of swimming about freely.

Origin of free-swimming

1
First recorded in 1890–95

Words Nearby free-swimming

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use free-swimming in a sentence

  • With but few exceptions sponges live in salt water and are never free swimming.

    A Civic Biology | George William Hunter
  • The first point in the development of Sycandra which deserves notice is the character of the free swimming larva.

  • At first they are little free-swimming creatures, feeding on foraminifers and other minute organisms that float about in the sea.

    The Sea Shore | William S. Furneaux
  • The same family contains the beautiful violet Ianthina, which also is not a British species, but a free-swimming oceanic snail.

    The Sea Shore | William S. Furneaux
  • Through these the eggs are discharged into the water, where they become free-swimming larv, called Pluteus.

    The Sea-beach at Ebb-tide | Augusta Foote Arnold

British Dictionary definitions for free-swimming

free-swimming

adjective
  1. (of aquatic animals or larvae) not sessile or attached to any object and therefore able to swim freely in the water

Derived forms of free-swimming

  • free-swimmer, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012