Coral

Coral - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Heb. ramoth, meaning "heights;" i.e., "high-priced" or valuable things, or, as some suppose, "that which grows high," like a tree (Job 28:18; Ezek. 27:16), according to the Rabbins, red coral, which was in use for ornaments.

The coral is a cretaceous marine product, the deposit by minute polypous animals of calcareous matter in cells in which the animal lives. It is of numberless shapes as it grows, but usually is branched like a tree. Great coral reefs and coral islands abound in the Red Sea, whence probably the Hebrews derived their knowledge of it. It is found of different colours, white, black, and red. The red, being esteemed the most precious, was used, as noticed above, for ornamental purposes.

Coral - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

CORAL, n. [L. Gr.]

1. In zoology, a genus belonging to the order of vermes zoophyta. The trunk is radicated, jointed and calcarious. The species are distinguished by the form of their branches, and are found in the ocean adhering to stones, bones, shells, _c. Coral was formerly supposed to be a vegetable substance, but is now known to be composed of a congeries of animals. Coral is red, white and black. It is properly the shells of marine animals of the polype kind, consisting of calcarious earth combined with gelatine and other animal matter. In the South Sea, the isles are mostly coral rocks covered with earth. Corals seem to consist of carbonate of lime and animal matter, in equal proportions.

2. A piece of coral worn by children about their necks.

CORAL, a. Made of coral; resembling coral.