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cuttlefish
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkʌtl̩fɪʃ/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkʌt(ə)lfɪʃ/, (common but proscribed) /-təɹ-/, [-ɾ(ə)l]
- Hyphenation: cut‧tle‧fish
Noun
cuttlefish (countable and uncountable, plural cuttlefishes or cuttlefish)
- Any squid-like cephalopods (marine mollusks) of the order Sepiida that have eight arms, two retractable tentacles, and a calcareous internal shell, and can eject a dark ink when threatened.
- Synonyms: cuttle, inkfish, sepia
- Hypernyms: cephalopod < mollusc < animal < organism < creature
- Hyponym: flamboyant cuttlefish
- Coordinate terms: octopus, squid, nautilus
- 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 72:
- Cuttle-fish, spiced oysters, sea hedge-hogs, and lobsters were among the ingredients of love-potions that reputed thaumaturgist Apuleius [...] was accused of have prepared in order to win the love of a widow.
- 2017 August 9, Mark Carnall, “Why do cephalopods produce ink? And what's ink made of, anyway?”, in The Guardian:
- Fossilised ink sacs are more conclusively known from the extinct “soft-bodied” Coleoidea cephalopods in groups Belemitida (including belemnites with bullet-like internal skeletons commonly found as fossils) and Phragmoteuthida as well as from squid, octopus and cuttlefish fossils.
Derived terms
Translations
any of various squidlike mollusks
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