- any true or stony coral of the order Madreporaria, forming reefs or islands in tropical seas.
Origin of madrepore
1745–55; < French madrépore reef-building coral < Italian madrepora, equivalent to madre mother (< Latin māter) + -pora, for poro < Greek pôros kind of stone
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for madrepore
It occurs in the Dublin limestone, and resembles a coral or madrepore.A Conchological Manual
George Brettingham Sowerby
All around is a sea of mounds covered with sand, where the houses stood, mostly built of madrepore, and laid out in streets.
The madrepore pier had been nearly swept away, and the houses near the water were flooded.
The madrepore corals are called reef-builders, but not in the sense of constructors of reefs.The Sea-beach at Ebb-tide
Augusta Foote Arnold
Finally, as a last despairing effort, I took a pencil and began to make a sketch of a madrepore.Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting
William T. Hornaday
- any coral of the genus Madrepora, many of which occur in tropical seas and form large coral reefs: order Zoantharia
C18: via French from Italian madrepora mother-stone, from madre mother + -pora, from Latin porus or Greek poros calcareous stone, stalactite
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