nigger-fish

English

Alternative forms

• niggerfish

Etymology

nigger +‎ fish

Noun

nigger-fish (plural nigger-fishes or nigger-fish)

1. (now offensive) A Caribbean grouper, yellowfish, coney (Cephalopholis fulva) (syn. Epinephelus punctatus, Enneacentrus punctatus (family Serranidae)).
   • 1908, James A. Henshall, Favorite Fish & Fishing, page 61:

     All of the groupers […] are game-fishes worthy of the steel of the angler, and grow to goodly size, twenty to forty pounds. […] Those named are rather sober in their garb, which is more or less marbled or spotted with black, but some of the groupers about Key West are remarkably handsome fishes, and are much given to very gay and bizarre attire; their coats, like Joseph's, being of many colors. […] But the dude of the family is the niggerfish, which is a rag-time dandy, always in full dress for a cake walk.

   • 1930, Frank Moore Colby, Talcott Williams, The New International Encyclopaedia, volume 20, page 638:

     Other prominent marine Serranidae in America are the jewfishes, niggerfishes, groupers, hinds, guasas, scamps, squirrel fishes, and yellowtails.

References

• “nigger-fish”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.