Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A young salmon at the stage intermediate between the parr and the grilse, when it becomes covered with silvery scales and first migrates from fresh water to the sea.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A salmon in its second year, when it has lost its parr-marks and assumed its silvery scales; the stage of salmon-growth between the parr and the grilse. The smolt proceeds at once to the sea, and reappears in fresh water as the grilse.
- Smooth and shining.
Wiktionary
- adj. Bright; serene.
- adj. of weather Calm; fine; fair.
- adj. Smooth and shining.
- n. A young salmon two or three years old, when it has acquired its silvery color.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A young salmon two or three years old, when it has acquired its silvery color.
Etymologies
- Probably an alteration of smelt, due to smolt ("smooth"). See above. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Medieval Latin smoltus, probably of Old English origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The infant salmon remains in fresh water at least one year, generally two years, without growing more than a few inches, and then about May assumes what is called the smolt-dress, that is to say, it loses the dark parr-bands and red spots of infancy and becomes silvery all over.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1
“smolt," and is from six to eight inches long, still living in the river where it was hatched.”
“Slack water behind the dams make migrating smolt vulnerable to predators, and turbines at the dams puree many of them.”
“Trouble is, the Army Corps of Engineers has been barging and trucking smolt for 17 years, and the populations have still been plunging.”
“O. m. gairdneri steelhead spend two to three years in fresh water, smolt, and migrate to salt water.”
“Most sockeye smolt and migrate to the ocean when they are 3 to 6 inches 8-15 cm long.”
“They smolt and enter marine waters at only a few months of age, as pink and chum salmon do.”
“In these two species, the young smolt when they are barely 1 inch 25 mm long, allowing great numbers of juvenile salmon to migrate to the ocean from even small areas of freshwater spawning habitat.”
“In the northern part of their range, however, steelhead commonly smolt at three years of age.”
“In Arctic regions, it typically takes from four to eight years before a smolt size of about 7 to 10 inches 18-25 cm is attained, and the char then make annual migrations to the sea for about 30 to 60 days for intensive feeding.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘smolt’.
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EN - fine scholarly language
exhort, accretion, twenty-nine, atrophy, additive, brilliantly, interreligious, empiricism, pathologic, limitless, half-century, vigilant and 488 more...
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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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PECH - marine species
Alaska plaice, African cuttlefish, Alaska pollock, Alaska pollack, walleye pollock, alewife, gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, allis shad, American angler, goosefish and 994 more...
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Salmon
All salmon all the time!
Also see asativium's excellent Salmon I am list.salmon, Salmon, Salmon of Knowledge, the Salmon of Lly..., chinook salmon, kipper, spent fish, foul fish, kelts, kelt, shedder, baggit and 70 more...
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Alaska
Names of places, animals, plants, people, etc. found in and around Alaska.
koyukon, chinook, coho, sockeye, king salmon, chum, dog salmon, kipper, kelt, baggit, samlet, parr and 221 more...
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Are we there yet?
These have some growing up to do.
colt, foal, kitten, cub, pup, heifer, larva, imago, veliger, trochophore, grub, maggot and 178 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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Baby Animals
chick, crocklets, whelp, foal, duckling, eaglet, hatchling, fingerling, fry, polliwog, gosling, cheeper and 21 more...
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Scotch on the Rocks
The miracle of Google Books now makes available in digital form many literary treasures of the past, which would otherwise remain sequestered in dusty libraries. For instance, Charles Mackay's admi...
cockernonie, collie-shangie, bubbly-jock, blaw-i'-my-lug, buckle beggar, tinkle-sweetie, tappit-hen, tongue-ferdy, tittie-billie, todlaurel, tillie-soul, ultimus eekibus and 70 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for smolt.
knitandpurl "Brown storks flock to brooks to look for schools of smolt or schools of snook."
Eunoia by Christian Bök (upgraded edition), p 69 May 22, 2010
yarb I released smolt on Saturday; it was a lot of fun. Apr 28, 2009
sionnach fair and calm weather with a blue sky. Apr 28, 2009