Beast Mode: An Ark of Animal Words: Something's Fishy: A Fresh Catch of Aquatic Words

Are you angling for a bigger vocabulary to tell your next fish story? Let this list lure you under the waves, where you'll catch a net full of shiny words from the ocean kingdom. Take the plunge!
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. abalone
    a large edible marine gastropod with an ear-shaped shell
    Afterwards I went down to the shore where I could gather a few abalones and sometimes spear a fish for my supper. Island of the Blue Dolphins
  2. algae
    primitive chlorophyll-containing aquatic organisms
    For most of the four billion years since the origin of life, the dominant organisms were microscopic blue-green algae, which covered and filled the oceans. Cosmos
    Alga means "seaweed" in Latin.
  3. angler
    a fisherman who uses a hook and line
    Some 25 million Americans look to fishing as a major source of recreation and another 15 million are at least casual anglers. Silent Spring
    A fish hook used to be known as an angle. This makes sense when you know that early hooks weren't the curved shapes we know today; they were often much more triangular, like a check mark or the Vocabulary.com logo.
  4. aquatic
    operating or living or growing in water
    He enjoyed the game of chasing turtles and other small river creatures, but I’d never seen him actually catch anything aquatic. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
    Aqua is Latin for water. You'll see it in related words, like aquarium and aqueous. Aquamarine — which means "ocean blue" — is the name of a semiprecious gem with a bright blue-green color.
  5. barnacle
    marine crustacean with feathery food-catching appendages
    It is encrusted with mussels and barnacles growing a foot above the waterline, coming almost close enough to touch the scarecrow’s work boots. Challenger Deep
  6. brackish
    slightly salty
    Hemingway's house had survived the storm, except that the giant swimming pool was filled with brackish water and debris, along with a magnificent sea turtle that I immediately named Ernest. Hole in My Life
    Brackish water occurs where fresh rivers flow into the salty ocean. Some species have evolved to live in these environments, thriving in water that's less salty than the ocean. Brack is a Dutch word for "useless."
  7. brine
    water containing salts
    “After we harvest the plankton, the brine is evaporated and the salt is processed for sale. These are the highest salt mountains in the world. People come from all over to admire them.” The House of the Scorpion
    Brine is a Dutch word for salty water. It can refer to the ocean, or to salted water that you might marinate a chicken in.
  8. cetacean
    large aquatic carnivorous mammal with fin-like forelimbs
    While the study looked at all cetaceans – dolphins, porpoises and whales – the vast majority being caught were dolphins. The Guardian
    Whales, dolphins, and orca are all cetaceans. Cetus means "whale" in Latin; it comes from the Greek Kitos.
  9. conch
    an edible tropical marine mollusk or its large spiral shell
    "That's what this shell's called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." Lord of the Flies
  10. coral
    a very small ocean creature that often forms reefs
    We talked about how the little coral animals might have been building the foundations of the cay for thousands of years. The Cay
  11. crustacean
    mainly aquatic arthropod usually having a segmented body
    They are linked so intimately and indispensably with the lives of many fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans that were they no longer habitable these seafoods would disappear from our tables. Silent Spring
    Lobsters, crab, and shrimp are all crustaceans. The crust you see there is in fact from the same Latin word, meaning "hard shell," that we use when we talk about pizza or pie crust.
  12. gill
    organ allowing aquatic animals to obtain oxygen from water
    He started to pull the fish in to have him alongside so that he could pass a line through his gills and out his mouth and make his head fast alongside the bow. The Old Man and The Sea
    Gill is of Scandinavian origin.
  13. kelp
    large brown seaweeds having fluted leathery fronds
    They had picked two dozen salmon from the net, three stray sticks, two dogfish, a long convoluted coil of kelp, and a number of ensnarled jellyfish when Carl Heine’s face showed. Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel
  14. littoral
    the region of the shore of a lake or sea or ocean
    Like the Peruvian littoral, it is bracketed by sea and mountains, but it catches, rather than misses, the prevailing winds, and the rain that comes with them. 1491
    Littus means "shore" or "coast" in Latin, and littoralis means "coastal."
  15. lox
    brine-cured salmon that is lightly smoked
    I opted for the smoked salmon and crisps, which was basically a deconstructed lox bagel. Washington Post
    If you've ever had smoked salmon on your bagel, that's lox. Laks is Yiddish, from lahs, the Old High German word for "salmon." You may also see gravlax; this is a Scandinavian word meaning "buried salmon" because the fish was often brined and buried to keep it cool during fermentation. Appropriately for something buried, the grav in gravlax comes from the same root as grave.
  16. marine
    of or relating to the sea
    They will find their way into rivers and streams, and even travel for miles out into oceans, where they will choke fish and endanger marine mammals. Counting by 7s
  17. pelagic
    relating to, occurring in, or living in the open ocean
    Illegal fishing is common, they said, confirming reports of the widespread targeting of small pelagic fish or “saiko” by trawlers, an illegal trade revealed by the Environmental Justice Foundation this year. The Guardian
    Pelagos is Greek for "sea." Pelagic is sort of the opposite of littoral; it refers to creatures that live in the deep ocean away from the coasts.
  18. piscine
    of or relating to fish
    I saw a river full of fish leaping from the water like chaotic piscine fireworks and men in speedboats yelling and holding out nets to catch them as if they were wet and weighty butterflies. New York Times
    Piscis is "fish" in Latin. If you're a Pisces, that should look familiar.
  19. plankton
    aggregate of small organisms that float or drift in water
    There had been whales feeding on plankton and he had tried pulling his plankton cone net but with only partial success. The Voyage Of The Frog
  20. prawn
    shrimp-like crustacean often used as food
    Big clams, prawns, crab, all kinds of fish, salty and freshwater, the best—otherwise why would so many foreigners come to this port? The Joy Luck Club
    Prawns are essentially great big shrimp. The origin of the word is unknown, but possibly Germanic.
  21. saline
    containing salt
    It was ugly, saline, fringed with marsh, mud and seaweed. A Separate Peace
    Sal is "salt" in Latin, so saline means "salty."
  22. scale
    a rigid plate forming part of the body covering of animals
    In the dream the fish wiggled and wiggled, their rainbow scales flickering in the sun. Miracle's Boys
  23. sushi
    cold rice and vinegar topped or rolled with raw fish
    He liked the seaweed wrapped around the sushi roll: how tough it was to chew, the subtleness of the ocean water. An Abundance of Katherines
    Sushi actually refers to the rice — seasoned with vinegar and sometimes a little sugar — that raw fish is wrapped in or served on top of in this hugely popular Japanese tradition. Raw fish without rice is known as sashimi.
  24. troll
    fish with a hook and line drawn through the water
    Largemouth bass are good now in spawn fishing with worms, jigs, or underwater fast trolling baits. Washington Times
    Also spelled trawl, trolling means fishing with a lure or bait dragged through the water, often behind a boat. It also has an unrelated meaning: a supernatural monster, and more recently a bad actor on the internet who abuses people to stifle debate or spread misinformation.
Created on Thu Apr 09 14:24:56 EDT 2020 (updated Fri May 05 12:13:37 EDT 2023)

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