basking shark

1. 1.

   large harmless plankton-eating northern shark; often swims slowly or floats at the sea surface

   SynonymsCetorhinus maximus

   Broadermackerel shark

   Part ofCetorhinus

Questions about basking shark

What does basking shark mean?

basking shark means "large harmless plankton-eating northern shark; often swims slowly or floats at the sea surface".

What is another word for basking shark?

Close synonyms include Cetorhinus maximus. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is basking shark a common word?

basking shark is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.