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Coral

Gemstones
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Marine skeletal material, red or pink, symbolizing life, protection, and vitality.

Detailed Definition
Coral in poetry bridges land and sea, embodying organic resilience and communal strength (as coral reefs). Its blood-red hue links it to life force and sacrifice. Mediterranean poets used coral as apotropaic symbols; modern verses employ it to explore ecological fragility or the beauty of interconnectedness—each branch a metaphor for lineage or collective survival.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” evokes coral as “sea-change into something rich and strange”; Victorian mourning jewelry used red coral to symbolize life persisting beyond death; a modern eco-elegy says, “Coral reefs are the ocean’s poetry—now bleached silence”; in Mediterranean verse, coral wards off the evil eye; feminist poets use coral to represent communal female strength (like reefs); its organic origin makes it ideal for verses on interconnectedness.
Additional Notes
Coral, though organic (from marine polyps), is treated as a gemstone; red coral especially symbolizes protection, vitality, and the sea—its branching form and biological origin offer rich metaphors for life, community, or fragility in the face of environmental change, resonant in contemporary eco-poetry.
Also Known As
Precious Coral
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