sardine

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various small or half-grown edible herrings or related fishes of the family Clupeidae, frequently canned in oil or water, especially the pilchard of European waters.
2. n. Any of numerous small, silvery, edible freshwater or marine fishes unrelated to the sardine.
3. v. Slang To pack tightly; cram: "The bars are sardined with hungry hopefuls” ( Gael Greene).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One of several different small clupeoid fish suitable for canning in oil. The genuine sardine of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts of Spain, Portugal, and France is the pilchard, Clupea pilchardus, highly esteemed for its delicate flavor. The Californian sardine is C. sagax, called sadina. Another is the Spanish sardine, C. pseudohispanica, found from Cuba to Florida, and related to the former, but having a strongly striate operculum. In the French preparation of sardines these delicate fish are handled as fresh as possible, to which end the factories are usually within two or three hours from the place where the fish are caught. Placed on stone tables, the fish are headed and gutted; they are then allowed to drain on wooden slats overnight, after being slightly salted. Next day they are salted again, and allowed to dry. They are then cooked in oil, and put in wire baskets to drip. The cooking is a nice process; if it is overdone the scales come off, which impairs the market value. Five or six minutes suffices for the cooking. When cold the fish are placed on tables, to be arranged in the boxes, in oil dipped from barrels. The oil being worth more than the fish, bulk for bulk, it is an object to fill the boxes as closely as possible with fish. The boxes are then soldered and afterward steamed, being placed in cold water on which steam is gradually turned. This second cooking takes an hour or more. The boxes are then allowed to cool in the water, and care is taken to move them as little as possible. In a cheaper method the sardines are first cooked in an oven without oil, the after-process being the same as before. As the fish are migratory, a shoal sometimes remains at a fishing-station only a week. The season of catching and canning lasts three or four months, from May to August. Small sardines are most prized. Large coarse fish put up in the United States as sardines, under the name of shadines, are young menhaden.
2. n. The Gulf menhaden, Brevoortia patronus.
3. n. The common menhaden, Brevoortia tyrannus, when prepared and boxed as sardines. See shadine.
4. n. An anchovy, Stolephorus browni.
5. n. A characinoid fish of the subfamily Tetragonopterinæ, living in the fresh waters of the island of Trinidad. Several species are known by the name.
6. n. An insignificant or contemptible person; a petty character. Compare small fry, under fry.
7. n. Same as sard.
8. n. A fresh-water fish, Conosirus erebi, of the herring tribe, which occurs in rivers of western and northwestern Australia and Queensland: so called in the Brisbane river region. It is the bony-bream of the New South Wales rivers and the Perth herring of Western Australia.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any one of several small species of herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially the pilchard, or European sardine (Clupea pichardus). The California sardine (Clupea sagax) is similar. The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the common herring and of the menhaden.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any one of several small species of herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil for food, especially the pilchard, or European sardine (Clupea pilchardus). The California sardine (Clupea sagax) is similar. The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the common herring and of the menhaden.
2. n. See sardius.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a deep orange-red variety of chalcedony
2. n. any of various small edible herring or related food fishes frequently canned
3. n. small fishes found in great schools along coasts of Europe; smaller and rounder than herring
4. n. small fatty fish usually canned