See king tide on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From king (“something preeminent”) + tide, perhaps chosen for the rhyme with spring tide.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "king tides",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "king tide (plural king tides)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Galician translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Māori translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Oceanography",
"orig": "en:Oceanography",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Tides",
"orig": "en:Tides",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "1994, Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea, International Organizations and the Law of the Sea: Documentary Yearbook, 1992, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, page 373,\nAs an illustration of our vulnerability, in 1990 and again in 1991, the largest king tides of the year in the Marshall Islands almost inundated Majuro′s urban area."
},
{
"text": "2008, David Corlett, Stormy Weather: The Challenge of Climate Change and Displacement, UNSW Press, page 8,\nThe unprecedented 2006 king tide was alarming."
},
{
"text": "2008, Bob Shepherd, Circuit, Pan MacMillan, UK, unnumbered page,\nHe told me that due to the interaction of certain moon phases with the broken coastline and offlying islands in that region, once every four years for four days they experience what are known as ‘king tides’. These tides can rise twenty feet above normal tide levels. The king tide phenomenon was not recorded in the tide tables or charts, so I had no way of knowing they existed when planning the exercise."
},
{
"text": "2010, Margaret Somerville, Tony Perkins, Singing the Coast, Aboriginal Studies Press, page 91,\nOther fish, prawns and crabs come into the Lake on the king tides and swim up to the warm backwaters to breed."
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
48,
58
]
],
"ref": "2026 June 18, Ali Watkins, Amy Graff, “Large Waves Sweep Napping Beachgoers in California Into the Sea”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
"text": "Exceptionally high tides, known colloquially as king tides, along the state’s coast reached record levels for the summer in the week that followed the students’ deaths, and have added to the hazardous conditions at beaches.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An unusually high spring tide that occurs during full moon in the summer and winter months (when the earth is at perihelion and the earth, moon and sun are aligned)."
],
"hypernyms": [
{
"word": "spring tide"
}
],
"id": "en-king_tide-en-noun-Z4oafsgZ",
"links": [
[
"spring tide",
"spring tide"
],
[
"full moon",
"full moon"
],
[
"perihelion",
"perihelion"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal) An unusually high spring tide that occurs during full moon in the summer and winter months (when the earth is at perihelion and the earth, moon and sun are aligned)."
],
"tags": [
"informal"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "gl",
"lang": "Galician",
"lang_code": "gl",
"sense": "exceptionally high spring tides that occur on occasion",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "marea viva"
},
{
"code": "gl",
"lang": "Galician",
"lang_code": "gl",
"sense": "exceptionally high spring tides that occur on occasion",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"plural"
],
"word": "mareas vivas"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Māori",
"lang_code": "mi",
"sense": "exceptionally high spring tides that occur on occasion",
"word": "ngā tai a Kupe"
}
]
}
],
"word": "king tide"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From king (“something preeminent”) + tide, perhaps chosen for the rhyme with spring tide.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "king tides",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "king tide (plural king tides)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"hypernyms": [
{
"word": "spring tide"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English informal terms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Galician translations",
"Terms with Māori translations",
"en:Oceanography",
"en:Tides"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "1994, Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea, International Organizations and the Law of the Sea: Documentary Yearbook, 1992, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, page 373,\nAs an illustration of our vulnerability, in 1990 and again in 1991, the largest king tides of the year in the Marshall Islands almost inundated Majuro′s urban area."
},
{
"text": "2008, David Corlett, Stormy Weather: The Challenge of Climate Change and Displacement, UNSW Press, page 8,\nThe unprecedented 2006 king tide was alarming."
},
{
"text": "2008, Bob Shepherd, Circuit, Pan MacMillan, UK, unnumbered page,\nHe told me that due to the interaction of certain moon phases with the broken coastline and offlying islands in that region, once every four years for four days they experience what are known as ‘king tides’. These tides can rise twenty feet above normal tide levels. The king tide phenomenon was not recorded in the tide tables or charts, so I had no way of knowing they existed when planning the exercise."
},
{
"text": "2010, Margaret Somerville, Tony Perkins, Singing the Coast, Aboriginal Studies Press, page 91,\nOther fish, prawns and crabs come into the Lake on the king tides and swim up to the warm backwaters to breed."
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
48,
58
]
],
"ref": "2026 June 18, Ali Watkins, Amy Graff, “Large Waves Sweep Napping Beachgoers in California Into the Sea”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
"text": "Exceptionally high tides, known colloquially as king tides, along the state’s coast reached record levels for the summer in the week that followed the students’ deaths, and have added to the hazardous conditions at beaches.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An unusually high spring tide that occurs during full moon in the summer and winter months (when the earth is at perihelion and the earth, moon and sun are aligned)."
],
"links": [
[
"spring tide",
"spring tide"
],
[
"full moon",
"full moon"
],
[
"perihelion",
"perihelion"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal) An unusually high spring tide that occurs during full moon in the summer and winter months (when the earth is at perihelion and the earth, moon and sun are aligned)."
],
"tags": [
"informal"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "gl",
"lang": "Galician",
"lang_code": "gl",
"sense": "exceptionally high spring tides that occur on occasion",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "marea viva"
},
{
"code": "gl",
"lang": "Galician",
"lang_code": "gl",
"sense": "exceptionally high spring tides that occur on occasion",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"plural"
],
"word": "mareas vivas"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Māori",
"lang_code": "mi",
"sense": "exceptionally high spring tides that occur on occasion",
"word": "ngā tai a Kupe"
}
],
"word": "king tide"
}
Download raw JSONL data for king tide meaning in All languages combined (3.4kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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