Meanings
- A sandbank at the southern end of the North Sea, lying 6 miles (10 km) off the Deal coast in Kent, England.
1 more example
In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The chapel”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
Cite this entry
Goodwin Sands. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Goodwin%20Sands
“Goodwin Sands.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Goodwin%20Sands. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Goodwin Sands,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Goodwin%20Sands.
Source: Goodwin Sands on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.