Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various North American freshwater fishes of the family Centrarchidae, having laterally compressed, often brightly colored bodies and including the crappies, black bass, bluegill, and pumpkinseed.
  • noun Any of several large marine fishes of the family Molidae, especially the ocean sunfish.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A common name of various fishes.
  • noun A jellyfish, especially one of the larger kinds, a foot or so in diameter. See cut under Cyanea.
  • To act like a sunfish, specifically as in the quotation.

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

  • noun A very large oceanic plectognath fish (Mola mola, Mola rotunda, or Orthagoriscus mola) having a broad body and a truncated tail.
  • noun Any one of numerous species of perch-like North American fresh-water fishes of the family Centrachidæ. They have a broad, compressed body, and strong dorsal spines. Among the common species of the Eastern United States are Lepomis gibbosus (called also bream, pondfish, pumpkin seed, and sunny), the blue sunfish, or dollardee (L. pallidus), and the long-eared sunfish (L. auritus). Several of the species are called also pondfish.
  • noun The moonfish, or bluntnosed shiner.
  • noun The opah.
  • noun The basking, or liver, shark.
  • noun Any large jellyfish.

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

  • noun Any of various small freshwater fishes of the family Centrarchidae, often with iridescent colours and having a laterally compressed body.
  • noun Any of various large marine fishes of the family Molidae that have an oval compressed body.

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

  • noun among the largest bony fish; pelagic fish having an oval compressed body with high dorsal and anal fins and caudal fin reduced to a rudder-like lobe; worldwide in warm waters
  • noun small carnivorous freshwater percoid fishes of North America usually having a laterally compressed body and metallic luster: crappies; black bass; bluegills; pumpkinseed
  • noun the lean flesh of any of numerous American perch-like fishes of the family Centrarchidae

Etymologies

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

[From the roundish bodies and bright colors of many sunfish species.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

sun +‎ fish

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Examples

  • Some big cities are using bluegills, sometimes known as sunfish or brim -- brim, wherever you live.

    CNN Transcript Sep 19, 2006 2006

  • Some biologists consider the fishes a “superclass, ” and divide them into three classes: bony fishes, such as sunfish and cod; fishes with a skeleton formed of cartilage rather than bone, such as sharks; and fishes that lack jaws, such as lampreys.

    fishes 2002

  • When one of these "sunfish," as the fishermen call them, is lifted from the water, the clay-coloured eggs may be seen to stream from it in myriads.

    The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year William Beebe 1919

  • And every now and then he'd catch a different kind of sunfish - a redear, a longear, a warmouth and, on occasion, a green sunfish.

    Arkansas Online stories KEITH SUTTON Contributing Writer 2010

  • I found a longer bait targeted the 12inch plus smallies better and kept sunfish at bay.

    What Gets Your Smallies Going? 2009

  • Today I went fishing for flathead catfish using sunfish as bait.

    Live bait for Flathead Catfish 2009

  • Crunching on the nicely seasoned sunfish tails always brings back great childhood memories.

    The Fried Fish Debate 2009

  • I've caught ALL of the following on it: largemouth bass, black crappie, white crappie, bluegill, red ear sunfish, white perch, spotted gar, and a channel catfish.

    Favorite Lures of the Crappie Guides 2009

  • Crunching on the nicely seasoned sunfish tails always brings back great childhood memories.

    The Fried Fish Debate 2009

  • I found a longer bait targeted the 12inch plus smallies better and kept sunfish at bay.

    What Gets Your Smallies Going? 2009

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