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  1. cuttlefish love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of various squidlike cephalopod marine mollusks of the genus Sepia that have ten arms and a calcareous internal shell and eject a dark inky fluid when in danger.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A cephalopod; specifically, a cephalopod of the genus Sepia and family Sepiidæ; a dibranchiate cephalopodous mollusk, with a depressed body, inclosed in a sac. The shorter arms or feet, eight in number, covered with four rows of raised disks or suckers, are arranged around the mouth, and from the midst of them extend two long tentacles, also furnished with disks. These members the animal uses in walking, for attaching itself to objects, and for seizing its prey. A tube or funnel exists below the head and leads from the gills, through which the water admitted to these organs is expelled; and the creature, by ejecting the water with force, can dart backward with amazing velocity. In a sac on the back of the mantle there is a light, porous, calcareous shell formed of thin plates; this is the cuttlebone or sepiost, corresponding to the calamary or pen of the squids. (See calamary.) The cuttlefish has the power of ejecting a black, ink-like fluid, the sepia of artists (see sepia), from a bag or sac, so as to darken the water and conceal itself from pursuit. From this usage the term cuttlefish is extended not only to all the forms of Sepiidæ and related decapod cephalopods, but also to the octopod members of the same class. When the octopods are called cuttlefishes, the decapods are commonly distinguished as squids. The two figures illustrate the two principal types. See Decapoda, Octopoda, and Cephalopoda, and cuts under Dibranchiata, ink-bag, and Sepia.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Any of various squidlike cephalopod marine mollusks of the genus Sepia that have ten arms and a calcareous internal shell and eject a dark inky fluid when in danger.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. ten-armed oval-bodied cephalopod with narrow fins as long as the body and a large calcareous internal shell

Etymologies

  1. From cuttle +‎ fish. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English codel, cotil, cuttlefish (from Old English cudele) + fish. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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synonyms (1)

Words with the same meaning

  1. inkfish

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. decapod

same context (21)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. cuttle-fish
  2. law-breaking
  3. squid
  4. octopus
  1. shilly-shallying
  2. magnificent-looking
  3. gardant
  4. bluebottle
  1. accessions
  2. silkworm
  3. pre-implantation
  4. loose-lipped
  1. metamorphism
  2. hooligan
  3. one-pointed
  4. clericalism
  1. well-crafted
  2. bicyclist
  3. lant
  4. octopi
  1. pyloric

reverse dictionary (42)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. cephalopod
  2. inkfish
  3. sepia
  4. sepiostare
  5. octopus
  6. dibranchia
  7. devilfish
  8. poulp
  1. preke
  2. scuttlefish
  3. sea-sleeve
  4. sepioid
  5. sepiophore
  6. sepiost
  7. camshell
  8. atrament
  1. cuttle
  2. gladius
  3. cuttlebone
  4. dibranchiate
  5. decapod
  6. ink sac
  7. acetabuliferous
  8. acetabulum
  1. belemnite
  2. fish
  3. subclass dibranchia
  4. subclass dibranchiata
  5. dibranchiata
  6. cephalopoda
  7. class cephalopoda
  8. ink
  1. melain
  2. osselet
  3. pounce
  4. sound
  5. bone
  6. calamary
  7. endosteal
  8. funnel
  1. squid
  2. sucker

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. animal
  1. cephalopod

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tagging (1)

Words tagged ‘cuttlefish’

  1. cephalopod

Wordmap

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Word visualization

Lists

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Comments

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  • bilby Ha! Mango Starr! Nov 29, 2009

  • ruzuzu I found some Beatle juice boxes. Nov 29, 2009

  • madmouth unctious ochre Nov 27, 2009

  • PossibleUnderscore That should say dirtyish. I don't know what went wrong with my typing and I'm itching to fix it, but the edit button has disappeared. Nov 27, 2009

  • PossibleUnderscore Squishy yellow? No... more like vomity yellow run through with red.
    (and the best Volkswagen Beetles are white(or at least a dirish white) with a blue and red stripe and the number 53) Nov 27, 2009

  • ruzuzu I think it might be a squishy yellow... unless we're talking about Volkswagen Beetles, in which case it's probably an oily brown. Nov 27, 2009

  • bilby Your research report on the colour of beetle juice remains overdue. Nov 27, 2009

  • ruzuzu As I was out looking at the stars tonight, I realized what color Betelgeuse is--it's red. Wikipedia tells me it's a red supergiant. Nov 27, 2009

  • pterodactyl *listens to pronunciation*

    Oho, so that's how you differentiate "cuttlefish" from "cuddlefish" -- you aspirate the T's! Oooooh, sionnach, you sly fox! Nov 26, 2009

  • bilby *picks up a fox and belts it with his hurley 60 metres and over the crossbar for a nice 3-pointer*
    Feral fox flogging is my hockey hobby.
    Nov 25, 2009

  • sionnach And I always thought 'food lobby' was Strine for 'cafeteria'.

    But maybe it's rhyming slang for 'hobby', e.g. "unicycle hockey is just my food lobby, my true avocation is tonsil hockey". Nov 25, 2009

  • PossibleUnderscore Love the pronunciation. The t's leap out of the speakers! Nov 25, 2009

  • Jubjub I'm going to quote this possible etymology and let it speak for itself:

    O.E. cudele "the cuttlefish;" perhaps related to M.L.G. küdel "container, pocket;" O.N. koddi "cushion, testicle;" and O.E. codd (see cod).

    No-- that can't speak for itself; I'll have to ruin it. But something to note: the prominence of the 'd' in the provenance of the 't'. (Makes you wonder where the 't' comes from.) Nov 25, 2009

  • bilby I pronounce those Ts. The risk of snuggling up to inky stinkies is far too great to run.

    ptero, it was a meeting of a food lobby group ... think locavore, permaculture, organic stuff. Nov 25, 2009

  • uselessness I think you just poked my eyes out with those finely sharpened Ts, 'nach! Next time file 'em down a bit, will ya? :-D Nov 25, 2009

  • sionnach An OPI, am I? Listen to the way these words trip mellifluously off my tongue, and weep!

    The moment I enunciated "cuttlefish" for the third time, my kitchen filled up with inky cephalopods, so, if you'll excuse me, I have to tear myself away and go deal with this "situation". Nov 25, 2009

  • yarb If I had a mic I'd be blowing your cuddly minds right now. Nov 25, 2009

  • uselessness Indeed. I'm going to label anyone who pronounces the two differently as an Overly Pretentious Individual. Just because you can emphasize the hard Ts, doesn't mean you should. ;-) Nov 25, 2009

  • pterodactyl In my dialect, "cuttlefish" and "cuddlefish" are homophones, and I'm having trouble imagining a dialect in which they aren't.

    I'm also having trouble imagining what kind of meeting would warrant repeated uses of the word "cuttlefish". Nov 25, 2009

  • ruzuzu The cuttlefish arms are probably sepia-colored. Not sure what color beetle juice is.

    Edit: But here is the Beedle family crest. Nov 24, 2009

  • sionnach Maybe her coat of arms consists of three cuddlefish rampant on a field of sable.

    and, yarb, methinks you are thinking of beedlejuice. Nov 24, 2009

  • yarb 3 times in a row? Was it some sort of invocation? Nov 24, 2009

  • bilby A lady at my meeting today pronounced this cuddlefish. 3 times. Cephalopods may indeed be lovelorn but I've never thought of them as cuddly. Nov 24, 2009

  • chained_bear This is delightful. Dec 23, 2008

  • mollusque Is he trying to run a motion through under cover of a cloud of words, essaying the well-known "cuttle-fish trick" of the West?
    --Rudyard Kipling, 1891, The City of Dreadful Night Nov 9, 2007

  • reesetee Sadly, the only real cuttlefish I've seen have been the desiccated parts of them that are sold as calcium supplements for birds. Nov 8, 2007

  • sionnach cephalopod : where the cephalopygian cephalopygmies hang out. Nov 8, 2007

  • chained_bear I watched an episode of Nova about cuttlefish recently. I had never known what intricate and complex creatures they are.

    I also love the word cephalopod. Nov 8, 2007

  • chained_bear Well, I *had* typed "holy mackerel!" but then decided that was a lousy pun, even if it was unintentional. And schmoley was the best I could come up with.

    I'm having an off-day, what can I say? Nov 8, 2007

  • sonofgroucho Holy schmoley? I agree that is a bizarre quotation from mollusque. Nov 8, 2007

  • chained_bear Holy schmoley! My compliments, mollusque, on a wonderful citation! Nov 8, 2007

  • mollusque As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings are three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant.
    --George Eliot, 1872, Middlemarch Nov 8, 2007

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‘cuttlefish’ has been looked up 1603 times, loved by 2 people, added to 20 lists, commented on 32 times, and has a Scrabble score of 18.