Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A boxfish of warm coastal waters having hornlike protrusions or spines on the head.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name applied in New England to the grampus, Grampus griseus.
  • noun A name applied in Demerara to the manatee.
  • noun A name of various fishes and other marine animals. A sea-cow or sirenian.
  • noun A dolphin or porpoise. The Tursiops gilli, a porpoise of the family Delphinidæ, of the western coast of the United States. The grampus, Globicephalus melas.
  • noun An ostraciontoid fish, Ostracion quadricorne, with strong antrorse supraocular spines, like horns, common in tropical Atlantic waters, and occasionally found along the southern coast of the United States. Also called cuckold.
  • noun A local name in Orkney of sundry oval bivalve shell-fish, as clams.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The grampus.
  • noun A California dolphin (Tursiops Gillii).
  • noun A marine plectognath fish (Ostracoin quadricorne, and allied species), having two projections, like horns, in front; -- called also cuckold, coffer fish, trunkfish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of various types of boxfish.
  • noun The grampus.
  • noun A California dolphin (Tursiops gillii).
  • noun A marine plectognath fish (Ostracoin quadricorne and allied species), having two projections, like horns, in front; the cuckold, coffer fish, or trunkfish.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun trunkfish having hornlike spines over the eyes

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

cow +‎ fish

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cowfish.

Examples

  • The opening page for Reference has a featured article from Wikipedia - today it's about the Longhorn cowfish, October 20 in History (US history), People in the news (based on what?)

    Internet News: Search Engines Archives 2010

  • The opening page for Reference has a featured article from Wikipedia - today it's about the Longhorn cowfish, October 20 in History (US history), People in the news (based on what?)

    Internet News: Search Techniques Archives 2009

  • The opening page for Reference has a featured article from Wikipedia - today it's about the Longhorn cowfish, October 20 in History (US history), People in the news (based on what?)

    Internet News: Bing Reference Channels Powerset 2009

  • The opening page for Reference has a featured article from Wikipedia - today it's about the Longhorn cowfish, October 20 in History (US history), People in the news (based on what?)

    Internet News: October 2009 Archives 2009

  • I do not know what species they were — cowfish, the Jebeans called them — but they were a salmon hue, with many-rayed dorsal fins and small heads.

    Kushiel's Avatar Carey, Jacqueline, 1964- 2003

  • A cowfish, a triggerfish, the harlequin Picasso fish, a drifting sponge—all these lives were being lived out, every day, as they always had been.

    The Shell Collector : Stories Anthony Doerr 2002

  • A cowfish, a triggerfish, the harlequin Picasso fish, a drifting sponge—all these lives were being lived out, every day, as they always had been.

    The Shell Collector : Stories Anthony Doerr 2002

  • A cowfish, a triggerfish, the harlequin Picasso fish, a drifting sponge—all these lives were being lived out, every day, as they always had been.

    The Shell Collector : Stories Anthony Doerr 2002

  • Their only vegetable food is what they obtain from the palm-trees, and they subsist generally on turtle, tortoises, and the flesh of the manatee or cowfish, and other fish, which they spear or take with nets.

    The Three Lieutenants William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

  • Camo suggested that we should try and catch a cowfish, the flesh of which, when cut up into strips and dried in the sun, could be preserved for a considerable time, and would prove more serviceable than any other food we were likely to obtain.

    The Wanderers Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.