Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small fish (Tautogolabrus adspersus) of North American Atlantic waters that is common along the shore of the eastern United States.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The blue-perch, Ctenolabrus adspersus. It attains a length sometimes of 12 inches; it has about 18 dorsal spines, conical teeth in several rows, serrate preoperculum, and scaly cheeks and opercles. It is found most abundantly about rocks in salt water. Also called bergall, chogset, nipper, sea-perch, etc.
[New England.]
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small edible fish of the Atlantic coast (Ctenolabrus adspersus); -- called also
chogset ,burgall ,blue perch , andbait stealer . - n. A small shellfish; the limpet or patella.
WordNet 3.0
- n. common in north Atlantic coastal waters of the United States
Etymologies
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Thirty-three taxonomic groups of fish were collected in entrainment sampling, with five taxa cunner, bay anchovy, tautog, windowpane, and searobin comprising more than 90 percent of the sample.”
“My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand.”
“I have watched the bird plunge into the waves of the ocean, on the coast of Maine, to bring out a cunner almost too large for her to carry, and I have seen her drop into the placid waters of an Adirondack lake for lake-trout in the same manner.”
“In the meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb had got out his cunner-line, and was quietly fishing at the end of the wharf, as if to give me the idea that he wasn't so very much impressed by my intimacy with so renowned a character as Sailor Ben.”
“To sit for hours blinking in the sun, waiting for a cunner to come along and take his hook, was as exhaustive a kind of labor as he cared to engage in.”
“When the last cunner had vanished and nothing but olives and oyster crackers remained, the party settled on a sloping rock out of range of the fire, and reposed for a brief period to recover from the exertions of the feast, having, like the heroes in the old story, "eaten mightily for the space of an hour.”
“In addition to crabs, watermen found croaker and oyster toadfish, as well as rarities, such as stargazer and cunner.”
“The cunner, called the perch in Boston Harbour, is taken in spring and summer.”
Internet Archive: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society
“He even allowed Dab to pick out a line for him and put on the hook and sinker, and Dick Lee showed him how to fix his bait, "So de fust cunner dat rubs agin it wont knock it off.”
St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9
“Nocey, cunner kee darmissey kee darniss nee zargayyar kakaygo O”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cunner’.
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fish list
lots and lots of fish, a piscatorial
wetdreamablet, agnathan, ahi, ahuru, ahuruhuru, albacore, albicore, alec, alewife, allice, allis, amberjack and 840 more...
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It's a Fish
kelpfish, fatfin, dollarfish, barrelfish, palometa, poppy-fish, ballan-wrasse, sweetlips, bichir, finpike, bergall, cunner and 192 more...
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PECH - marine species
African cuttlefish, Alaska plaice, Alaska pollock, Alaska pollack, walleye pollock, alewife, gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, allis shad, American angler, goosefish and 994 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cunner.
hernesheir It's a fish. Jan 1, 2012