A type of brown seaweed (genus Sargassum) commonly found floating in the Gulf Stream and other ocean currents, especially in the Sargasso Sea.
Compound of 'gulf' (from Old French 'golfe', from Greek 'kolpos') plus 'weed' (Old English 'weod'). The weed was named for its abundance in the Gulf Stream and surrounding waters. It's also called sargasso weed or sea holly.
Columbus's sailors were terrified of gulfweed when they crossed the Atlantic—they'd never seen such massive floating mats of seaweed and thought they were trapped! The Sargasso Sea is basically a floating garden held together by ocean currents, and it's completely surrounded by ocean, not by land.
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