grouper

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various often large food and game fishes of the genera Epinephelus, Mycteroperca, and related genera, which inhabit warm seas.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A serranoid fish of the genus Epinephelus or Mycteroperca. The red grouper is E. morio, of a brownish color sprinkled with gray, reddish below, the fins partly edged with blue. It is common on the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, attains a weight of 40 pounds, and is a good market-fish. The black grouper is E. nigritus; it shares the name jewfish with some other species. It inhabits the Gulf of Mexico and extends northward to South Carolina, and is found of 300 pounds weight. Another grouper is E. capreolus, commonly called cabrilla. E. drummond-hayi, of the Gulf coast, is known as hind and john-paw. Also spelled grooper.
2. n. Any one of many different fishes in different countries. The name is applied to different species of serranoid fishes resembling or supposed to resemble the serranoid fishes properly so named.
3. n. The black jew-fish, Garrupa nigrita.
4. n. Mycteroperca bonaci.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of various large food and game fishes of the subfamily Epiphelinae, especially the genera Epinephelus and Mycteroperca, which inhabit warm seas.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One of several species of valuable food fishes of the genus Epinephelus, of the family Serranidæ, as the red grouper, or brown snapper (Epinephelus morio), and the black grouper, or warsaw (Epinephelus nigritus), both from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
2. n. The tripletail (Lobotes).
3. n. In California, the name is often applied to the rockfishes.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. usually solitary bottom sea basses of warm seas
2. n. flesh of a saltwater fish similar to sea bass