SEAL


Meaning of SEAL in English

I. seal 1 S3 /siːl/ BrE AmE noun [countable]

[ Sense 1: Language: Old English ; Origin: seolh ]

[ Sense 2-6: Date: 1100-1200 ; Language: Old French ; Origin: seel , from Latin sigillum , from signum ; ⇨ ↑ sign 1 ]

1 . a large sea animal that eats fish and lives around coasts

2 .

a) a mark that has a special design and shows the legal or official authority of a person or organization:

The document carried the seal of the governor’s office.

b) the object that is used to make this mark

3 . a piece of rubber or plastic that keeps air, water, dirt etc out of something

airtight/watertight seal

an airtight seal around the windows

4 . a piece of ↑ wax , paper, wire etc that you have to break in order to open a container, document etc

5 . seal of approval if you give something your seal of approval, you say that you approve of it, especially officially:

A number of employers have already given their seal of approval to the scheme.

6 . set the seal on something British English to make something definite or complete:

In 1972, Nixon himself went to China to set the seal on the new relationship.

II. seal 2 BrE AmE verb [transitive]

1 . ( also seal up ) to close an entrance or a container with something that stops air, water etc from coming in or out of it:

The window was sealed shut.

seal a joint/crack/opening/gap

A quick way to seal awkward gaps is to use a foam filler.

Dried milk is kept in hermetically sealed (=very tightly closed) containers.

2 . if a building, area, or country is sealed, no one can enter or leave it:

Authorities plan to seal the border.

3 . to close an envelope, package etc by using something sticky to hold its edges in place:

He wrote the address and sealed the envelope.

4 . to cover the surface of something with something that will protect it:

Wooden decks should be sealed to prevent cracking.

5 . seal sb’s fate to make something, especially something bad, sure to happen:

The outbreak of war sealed the government’s fate.

6 . seal a deal/bargain/pact etc to make an agreement more formal or definite

7 . seal a victory/win/match to make a victory certain:

Smith’s goal sealed the victory.

⇨ sb’s lips are sealed at ↑ lip (5), ⇨ all signed and sealed at ↑ sign 2 (6)

• • •

THESAURUS

▪ close to stop being open, or to make something stop being open. You use close and shut especially about your eyes, your mouth, a door, a window, or a container:

Can I close the window?

|

Her eyes slowly closed.

|

He closed the door gently, so as not to wake the children.

▪ shut to close something . Shut sometimes has a feeling of doing something quickly and firmly, whereas close sounds more careful:

He shut the door with a loud bang.

|

Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

▪ slam to close a door or lid quickly and noisily, especially because you are angry:

She left the room, slamming the door behind her.

▪ draw the curtains to close curtains by pulling them across a window:

The curtains were still drawn at ten o'clock in the morning.

▪ put the lid on something to close a container by putting a lid onto it:

Did you put the lid on the cookie jar?

▪ seal to close something so that no air or water can get in or out:

In this experiment, the chamber must be completely sealed.

seal something ↔ in phrasal verb

to stop something that is inside something else from getting out:

Fry the meat quickly to seal in the juices.

seal something ↔ off phrasal verb

to stop people from entering an area or building, because it is dangerous:

Following a bomb warning, police have sealed off the whole area.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.      Longman - Словарь современного английского языка.