starfish
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
Pronunciation [edit]
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Noun [edit]
starfish (plural starfishes or starfish)
- Any of various asteroids or other echinoderms (not in fact fish) with usually five arms, many of which eat bivalves or corals by everting their stomach.
- (vulgar, slang, usually in translations of Japanese pornography) an anus. See also chocolate starfish.
- (obsolete) Any many-armed or tentacled sea invertebrate, whether cnidarian, echinoderm, or cephalopod.
- 1755, Erik Pontoppidan, trans. Isaac Kimbler, Explanation of the Plate of Uncommon Star Fish, Extracted from the Natural History of Norway
- But the largest of the star-fish kind is that sea monster called kruken, kraken or krabben. [...] As this enormous sea-animal in all probability may be reckoned of the polype, or of the star-fish, kind, it seems that the parts which are seen rising at its pleasure, and are called arms, are properly the tentacula, or feeding instruments, called horns as well as arms.
- 1755, Erik Pontoppidan, trans. Isaac Kimbler, Explanation of the Plate of Uncommon Star Fish, Extracted from the Natural History of Norway
Synonyms [edit]
Translations [edit]
various echinoderms
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