Definitions

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

  • noun Any of several carangid fishes chiefly of the genus Selene, found in warm coastal waters of North and South America and having a short silvery compressed body.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name of several fishes.
  • noun The opah, Lampris guttatus.
  • noun Same as mariposa, 2.

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

  • noun An American marine fish (Vomer setipennis); -- called also bluntnosed shiner, horsefish, and sunfish.
  • noun A broad, thin, silvery marine fish (Selene vomer); -- called also lookdown, and silver moonfish.
  • noun The mola. See sunfish, 1.

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

  • noun zoology Any of various flat, egground marine fish species.

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

  • noun any of several silvery marine fishes with very flat bodies
  • noun large elliptical brightly colored deep-sea fish of Atlantic and Pacific and Mediterranean

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Germanic: moon + fish; parallel to the cognate, synonymous Dutch maanvis.

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Examples

  • The secret ingredient: opah (also known as moonfish or sunfish).

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed 2009

  • The roles since then have been seemingly random: an abominable snowman, a school of moonfish, a supervillain, an anthropomorphic Mack truck, a waiter, a space traveler and a construction worker.

    SFGate: Top News Stories 2010

  • He did witness "extensive moonfish kills" and also saw a number of dead sand perch and some tarpon.

    tcpalm.com Stories 2010

  • He buys albacore at $1.15 a pound, carita (Pacific moonfish) at $0.12 a pound and shrimp at $1.40

    Kiva Loans 2009

  • He buys albacore at $1.15 a pound, carita (Pacific moonfish) at $0.12 a pound and shrimp at $1.40

    Kiva Loans 2009

  • Sunfish, known in German as moonfish, are large flat fish with large fins on their top and underside.

    Latest News - UPI.com 2009

  • At the back of the store, the silvery gleam of a large opah (moonfish) was on display with other catches from the ocean.

    Starbulletin Headlines 2008

  • opah moonfish is one of my favourite fishes, ever. in hawaii, you can get dried opah at this little market called tamashiro's;if you're ever there, seek it out, it's fantastic--thinly sliced, marinated in soy, sesame oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

    Tuna Toast Tokyoastrogirl 2006

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