Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.604

c10.604

**ATOLL**, s. A group of coral islands forming a ring or chaplet, sometimes of many miles in diameter, inclosing a space of comparatively shallow water, each of the islands being on the same type as the *atoll*. We derive the expression from the Maldive islands, which are the typical examples of this structure, and where the form of the word is *atolu*. [P. de Laval (Hak. Soc. i. 93) states that the provinces in the Maldives were known as *Atollon*. It is probably connected with the Singhalese *ātul*, ‘inside’; [or *etula*, as Mr Gray (P. de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 94) writes the word. The *Mad. Admin. Man.* in the *Glossary* gives Malayāl. *attālam*, ‘a sinking reef’]. The term was made a scientific one by Darwin in his publication on *Coral Reefs* (see below), but our second quotation shows that it had been generalised at an earlier date.