crayfish

English

Some crayfish.

Alternative forms

• crawfish; craifish (obsolete), crafish, crefish (obsolete); crevis, crevice, crevyssh (obsolete)

Etymology

Alteration (by folk etymology, influenced by fish) of Middle English crevis, from Old French crevice ("crayfish"; > Modern French: écrevisse), from Old Frankish *krebitja (“crayfish”), diminutive of Old Frankish *krebit (“crab”), from Proto-Germanic *krabitaz (“crab, cancer”), from Proto-Indo-European *grebʰ-, *gerebʰ- (“to scratch, crawl”). Akin to Old High German krebiz ("edible crustacean, crab"; > Modern German Krebs (“crab”)), Middle Low German krēvet (“crab”), Dutch kreeft (“crayfish, lobster”), Old English crabba (“crab”). More at crab.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹeɪˌfɪʃ/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (AU):

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Noun

crayfish (plural crayfishes or crayfish)

1. Any of numerous freshwater decapod crustaceans in superfamilies and , resembling the related lobster but usually much smaller.
   1. (New England, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota) A freshwater crustacean (family ), sometimes used as an inexpensive seafood or as fish bait.
2. (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) A rock lobster (family Palinuridae).

Usage notes

The term crayfish predominates in the region of New England and in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In much of the United States—in the South, especially in Louisiana and Texas; in the Midwest and in the West—crawfish predominates. In a belt stretching across Kentucky through Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and in Oregon and northern California, the term crawdad predominates.

Synonyms

• (freshwater crustaceans): crawdad, crawldad, crawfish, crawlfish, mudbug, yabby (Australia)

Derived terms

• crayfish plague ()

Translations

freshwater crustacean resembling lobster

• Afrikaans: kreef
• Armenian: խեցգետին (hy) (xecʻgetin)
• Azerbaijani: xərçəng (az)
• Belarusian: рак m (rak)
• Bulgarian: ре́чен рак m (réčen rak), рак (bg) m (rak)
• Catalan: cranc del riu m
• Catawba: iise
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 小龍蝦／小龙虾 (zh) (xiǎolóngxiā), 小龙虾 (zh) (xiǎolóngxiā), 蝲蛄 (zh) (làgǔ)

• Choctaw: shakchi
• Czech: rak (cs) m
• Danish: krebs c
• Dutch: rivierkreeft (nl) m
• Esperanto: kankro
• Estonian: jõevähk
• Finnish: rapu (fi)
• French: écrevisse (fr) f (freshwater), langoustine (fr) f (saltwater)
• German: Krebs (de) m

  Alemannic German: Chräps m

• Greek: ποταμοκαραβίδα f (potamokaravída)

  Ancient: κάραβος m (kárabos)

• Guaraní: japeusa
• Hebrew: סרטן הנהרות m
• Hungarian: rák (hu)
• Icelandic: vatnakrabbi m
• Ido: kankro (io)
• Italian: aragosta (it) f, gambero (it) m, gambero di fiume m
• Japanese: 蝲蛄 (ja) (zarigani), ザリガニ (zarigani)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Korean: 가재 (ko) (gajae)
• Latgalian: viezs m
• Latin: cancer (la) m, carabus m
• Latvian: vēzis (lv) m
• Macedonian: рак m (rak)
• Maori: koura, kēwai
• Navajo: tooh chʼoshtsoh bíláshgaantsohí
• Norman: crabe à co f
• Ojibwe: ashaageshiinh
• Polish: rak (pl) m
• Portuguese: lagostim (pt) m
• Quechua: apanqura
• Romanian: rac (ro)
• Russian: рак (ru) m (rak), лангу́ст (ru) (langúst) (saltwater)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: рак m

  Roman: rak (sh) m

• Slovak: rak m
• Slovene: rak (sl) m
• Spanish: cangrejo de río m, cangrejo (es) m
• Swedish: kräfta (sv) c
• Tok Pisin: kindam
• Turkish: kerevit (tr)
• Ukrainian: рак (uk) m (rak)
• Vietnamese: tôm đồng
• Yiddish: ראַק (rak)

Verb

crayfish (third-person singular simple present crayfishes, present participle crayfishing, simple past and past participle crayfished)

1. to catch crayfish
2. Alternative form of crawfish (to backpedal, desert, or withdraw)

Translations

To catch crayfish

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Maori: pouraka

See also

• lobster
• prawn
• shrimp
• yabby

Further reading

• crayfish on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “crayfish”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.