Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Any fish of the family Triglidæ, and especially of the restricted subfamily Triglinæ; a triglid or trigline.
  • noun The gemmous dragonet, Callionymus lyra, more fully called yellow gurnard. See cut under Callionymus.
  • noun A flying-fish or flying-robin of the family Cephalacanthidæ (or Dactylopteridæ), more fully called flying-gurnard. The best-known species is Cephalacanthus or Dactylopterus volitans. See cut under Dactyloptcrus.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) One ofseveral European marine fishes, of the genus Trigla and allied genera, having a large and spiny head, with mailed cheeks. Some of the species are highly esteemed for food. The name is sometimes applied to the American sea robins.
  • noun See under Flying.

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

  • noun Any of various marine fish of the family Triglidae, that have a large armored head and fingerlike pectoral fins used for crawling along the sea bottom.

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

  • noun bottom-dwelling coastal fishes with spiny armored heads and fingerlike pectoral fins used for crawling along the sea bottom

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French gornart, from gronir, to grunt (from its grunting when caught), from Latin grunnīre.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • Amazing creature!

    December 16, 2007

  • "In 1483, a Friday meal served in the Tower of London as part of the three-day coronation banquet for Richard III included salted lamprey, pike soup, plaice in Saracen sauce, sea crabs, fried gurnard, and baked conger eel, followed by a second course of grilled tench, bass in pastry, salmon in pastry, sliced sole, perch in pastry, shrimp, trout, roast porpoise, and gurnard again (this time baked with quinces). The spices accompanying this meal were pepper, ginger, cloves, 'grains' (of paradise), mace, and a considerable amount of sugar."

    Paul Freedman, Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2008), 35.

    November 27, 2017