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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of numerous chiefly tropical, often brightly colored marine fishes of the family Labridae, having spiny fins, thick lips, and powerful jaws, and often valued for food.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In New Zealand, Pseudolabrus bothryocosmus. Called also poddly, spotty, and kelp-fish.
  2. n. An acanthopterygian teleost fish of the family Labridæ; any labrid, or labroid fish, having thick fleshy lips, strong sharp teeth, and usually brilliant coloration. See parrot-fish (with cut). They are carnivorous salt-water fishes of littoral habits, haunting chiefly rocky shores, and many of them are esteemed food-fishes. The species to which the name applies as a book-name are very numerous; but those of which wrasse is actually spoken are chiefly the British species, as the ballan-wrasse and the red wrasse. (See cut under Labrus.) In America the best-known wrasses (though not so called) are the common cunner, the tautog, and the fathead. See cuts under these words.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Any one of numerous edible, marine, spiny-finned fishes of the genus Labrus, of which several species are found in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast of Europe. Many of the species are bright-colored.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Any one of numerous edible, marine, spiny-finned fishes of the genus Labrus, of which several species are found in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast of Europe. Many of the species are bright-colored.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. chiefly tropical marine fishes with fleshy lips and powerful teeth; usually brightly colored

Etymologies

  1. Cornish gwragh and Welsh gwrach, old woman.

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‘wrasse’ has been looked up 625 times, added to 6 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 9.