Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The name-giving genus of Sparidæ, whose longest-known representative is the gilt-head of Europe: used at first in a very comprehensive sense, embracing many heterogeneous species belonging to a number of modern families, but now restricted to the gilthead and very closely related species, typical of the family Sparidæ. See cut under porgy.
  • noun A fish of this or some related genus; a spar.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • A shoal of fish, of the sparus tribe, swarmed round the raft, and although our tackle consisted merely of long cords baited with morsels of dried meat stuck upon bent nails, the fish were so voracious that in the course of a couple of days we had caught as many as weighed almost

    The Survivors of the Chancellor 2003

  • Fish is wisely preferred to meat by the white man, “affirming that it is much easier digested;” and a kind of herring, and the sparus known upon the Brazilian coast as the

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

  • Fishes have them high up about the stomach, and sometimes numerous, as in the goby, the galeos, the perch, the scorpaena, the citharus, the red mullet, and the sparus; the cestreus or grey mullet has several of them on one side of the belly, and on the other side only one.

    The History of Animals 2002

  • When a man in his eagerness ran out of his rank the consul rode up and struck him with his sparus and ordered the military tribunes and centurions to chastise him.

    The History of Rome, Vol. V 1905

  • Fish is wisely preferred to meat by the white man, "affirming that it is much easier digested;" and a kind of herring, and the sparus known upon the Brazilian coast as the "tainha," the West African

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 Richard Francis Burton 1855

  • He thought it remarkable that the same kind of fish should be here met with as in the Nile, -- charmuth, silurus, baenni, mulsil, and sparus Galilaeus.

    Palestine or the Holy Land From the Earliest Period to the Present Time Michael Russell 1814

  • A shoal of fish, of the sparus tribe, swarmed round the raft, and although our tackle consisted merely of long cords baited with morsels of dried meat stuck upon bent nails, the fish were so voracious that in the course of a couple of days we had caught as many as weighed almost 200 lbs., some of which were grilled, and others boiled in sea-water over a fire made on the fore part of the raft.

    The Survivors of the Chancellor 1911

  • A shoal of fish, of the sparus tribe, swarmed round the raft, and although our tackle consisted merely of long cords baited with morsels of dried meat stuck upon bent nails, the fish were so voracious that in the course of a couple of days we had caught as many as weighed almost 200lbs., some of which were grilled, and others boiled in sea-water over a fire made on the fore part of the raft.

    The Survivors of the Chancellor, diary of J.R. Kazallon, passenger Jules Verne 1866

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