Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several marine fishes of the family Echeneidae, having on the head a sucking disk with which they attach themselves to sharks, whales, sea turtles, or the hulls of ships. Also called shark sucker, suckerfish, suckfish.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Delay; obstacle; hindrance.
- n. The sucking-fish, Echeneis remora, or any fish of the family Echeneididæ, having on the top of the head a flattened oval adhesive surface by means of which it can attach itself firmly to various objects, as another fish, a ship's bottom, etc., but whether for protection or conveyance, or both, has not been satisfactorily ascertained. It was formerly believed to have the power of delaying or stopping ships. See cuts under Echeneis and Rhombochirus.
- n. A genus of such fishes, based on the species above-named.
- n. In medicine, a stoppage or stagnation, as of the blood.
- n. In surgery, an instrument to retain parts in place: not now in use.
- n. In heraldry, a serpent: rare, confined to certain modern blazons.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various elongate brown fish from the family Echeneidae whose dorsal fin is in the form of suction disc that can take a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Delay; obstacle; hindrance.
- n. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of fishes belonging to Echeneis, Remora, and allied genera. Called also sucking fish.
- n. (Surg.) An instrument formerly in use, intended to retain parts in their places.
WordNet 3.0
- n. marine fishes with a flattened elongated body and a sucking disk on the head for attaching to large fish or moving objects
Etymologies
- Latin, delay (from the belief that they could slow ships down), from remorārī, to delay : re-, re- + morārī, to delay (from mora, delay). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Some were truly incredible — from the impossibly tiny-mouthed filefish (No. 32), to the blue parrotfish (No. 35) that looked like wet sapphire, to the 2-foot-long remora (No. 34) that Adler insisted could adhere to my belly and hang there (it did, and the sensation was like having a vacuum-cleaner hose with a thousand tiny needles at its end stuck to your skin).”
“Alas, as the 1970s turned to the 1980s, the two major corporate publishers, Marvel and DC, turned their backs on the general audience -- especially children -- to saturate the emerging (adult) fan market flocking to comics specialty stores, and since the fan market wanted superheroes and more superheroes, that's what the Big Two, and a remora-school of wannabes, gave them.”
“I get caught, not only do I give away that I'm a spy and I'm here - I'll also likely as not lose the part of myself that's latched onto the servant like a remora to a shark.”
“Bowman had a perfect view of a beautifully streamlined, torpedo-shaped body, very much like one of the remora or suckerfish that attach themselves to sharks.”
“Its really hard to know whether Lanny Davis is totally lacking in even the slightest trace of a sense of irony, or whether he's just another Clinton remora who takes cynicism to the level of pathology.”
“But, alas, I imagine that Ickes and Carville will still be stuck, remora like, to the Party's underbelly for years to come.”
Harold Ickes Confirms That Wright Is Key Topic In Discussions With Super-Delegates
“Needless to say, neither Andrew Wilkow nor his remora, Nick Rizzuto, is a punk.”
“When I took a human-animal interaction class in college, we were taught that cats are not properly considered domesticated but commensal, like a remora or a cowbird but with much more sophisticated social engineering!”
“As Chris and Allie maintained their remora dance on Jules, Ginny walked to the other end of the gallery where the owner was motioning to her.”
“Thus armed, he boldly confronted the virago, and interposing a remora, which was able to check poor”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘remora’.
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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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phrontistery-r
from phrontistery.info
rya, rutilant, ruthful, rutherford, ruth, rusticity, rusticate, Russophobia, Russophile, russet, russel, rushlight and 514 more...
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NTDW2
yawp, smug, whit, amidships, jounce, fallow, conscionable, polyp, nouveau riche, palatial, encomiastic, exchequer and 182 more...
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words 2
janiform, remora, sprat, stoa, sone, lea, scow, atoll, Weltschmerz, barmy, concupiscent, actinic and 18 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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Underwaterritory
When you're underwater, what do you see or experience? Let's dive...
(Here's a cute little related list called Fishful Thinking...)underwater, curglaff, submarine, underwater habitat, diving bell, paravane, bottom trawling, sediment traps, torpedo, mines, shipwreck, sonar and 214 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
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words
diplopic, dolorous, farrago, surety, scuttlebutt, Arabesque, infarct, neurasthenia, lambent, expurge, univocal, simper and 395 more...
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today's word
copemate, quiddity, ere, maugre, argal, cultivar, exurb, spokesmodel, rollick, logy, cadastral, corpulent and 259 more...
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Annsley's list
churlish, bibulous, salt, salty, conjugal, fabulist, maw, primordial, chimera, emetic, surly, excrescence and 228 more...
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persnickety parlance
behoove, ebullient, insouciant, insipient, froth, quandary, quixotic, tendril, maktub, furrow, furl, anastrophe and 1076 more...
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another yet
anneal, copepod, cuckoo, fathead, intone, patter, cabriole, knickknack, boodle, kit, estrange, forebode and 209 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
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Critters
cockle, cicada, appaloosa, brachiopod, bivalve, aye-aye, cygnet, alewife, chamois, ermine, drake, dugong and 381 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for remora.
dimã©lion also called "sharksucker" and "suckerfish". Nov 20, 2008
arby "sucking fish," 1567, from L. remora, lit. "delay, hindrance," from re- "back" + mora "delay;" so called because the fish were believed by the ancients to retard a vessel to which they attached themselves. Pliny writes that Antony's galley was delayed by one at the Battle of Actium. Sometimes called in Eng. stayship or stopship.
Jul 13, 2007