spearfish

See also: Spearfish

English

Etymology

From spear +‎ fish.

Noun

spearfish (plural spearfishes or spearfish)

1. Any of the genus Tetrapturus of marlins, a type of fish with the upper jaw elongated into a spearlike bill.
2. Any striped marlin (Kajikia audax)
3. Any quillback (Carpioides cyprinus

Derived terms

• Atlantic longbill spearfish (Tetrapturus pfluegeri)
• Japanese spearfish (Tetrapturus angustirostris)
• longbill spearfish (Tetrapturus pfluegeri)
• Mediterranean shortbill spearfish (Tetrapturus belone)
• Mediterranean spearfish (Tetrapturus belone)
• roundscale spearfish (Tetrapturus georgii)
• shortbill spearfish (Tetrapturus angustirostris)
• slender spearfish (Tetrapturus angustirostris)
• spearfish remora (Remora brachyptera)
• spearfishsucker (Remora brachyptera)

Translations

Translations

• Maori: paea
• Turkish: yelken balığı (tr)

Verb

spearfish (third-person singular simple present spearfishes, present participle spearfishing, simple past and past participle spearfished)

1. To try to catch a fish using a spear or spear gun.
   • 1979 July 2, “Outdoors: Northeast Spearfishing”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Bart, who incidentally has designed an excellent diaphragm‐type call for geese and turkeys, once spearfished commercially in the British West Indies.

   • 2018 April 19, Carl Zimmer, “Bodies Remodeled for a Life at Sea”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     A Bajau diver spearfishes in Sulawesi.

   • 2020 July 14, Tom Mashberg, “Jay Riffe, Spearfishing King, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     He always said freediving was the best way to spearfish because it required enormous patience and concentration, without the benefit of a scuba tank, to hold one’s position until the right prey came along.

2. To fish for spearfish by any method.

Related terms

• spearfishing

References

• “spearfish”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “spearfish”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• Tetrapturus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Tetrapturus on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Tetrapturus on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Anagrams

• fishspear