sargasso

1. (figuratively) Also Sargasso: a confused, tangled mass or situation.Examples: "Afghanistan is a sargasso of wrecks from earlier civilizations; buried in its earth are hordes of Greek coins, Aramaic inscriptions, Saljuq mosques, and Mazdakite fire temples, flaking away in their own dust, forgotten in valleys where the local villagers carry away their bricks for cattle folds."; "His [Philip K. Dick's] ideas provide diegetic anchors for digitally oriented directors [...] whose works might otherwise float off into a Sargasso of insignificance."; "In Viking Man's apartment, a large closet he's made into a movie library is strewn with reels of film. The reels have spooled into a sargasso of celluloid; a projector stares from the end of the closet."countablefigurativelyuncountable

2. (biology, oceanography) A part of an ocean or sea characterized by floating masses of sargassos, like the Sargasso Sea.Examples: "Of Sargassos or Weedy Seas. [...] [T]he most remarkable of them all, is that in the North Atlantic. [Christopher] Columbus passed through it on his first voyage of discovery to America. […] The sargassos of the southern hemisphere are not so well marked as this, nor are they as rich in drift or floating matter."; "[H]eld safe and sound, I'd find the South Equatorial at last, at last, and safe from all the Sargassoes, the Scillas and Charibs, I'd swoop beautifully and lightly, drifting with the sweet currents of the South down the edge of the Brazilian Highlands to the Waters of Peace."; "Feverish eyes of mariners weatherbeaten in a thousand voyages, burning eyes of jailbirds yanked from Andalusian prisons and embarked by force: these eyes see no prophetic reflections of gold and silver in the foam of the waves, nor in the country and river birds that keep flying over the ships, nor in the green rushes and branches thick with shells that drift in the sargassos."countableuncountable