CATFISH (catfishes)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: catfishes   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does catfish mean? 

• CATFISH (noun)
  The noun CATFISH has 3 senses:

1. flesh of scaleless food fish of the southern United States; often farmed

2. large ferocious northern deep-sea food fishes with strong teeth and no pelvic fins

3. any of numerous mostly freshwater bottom-living fishes of Eurasia and North America with barbels like whiskers around the mouth

  Familiarity information: CATFISH used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CATFISH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Flesh of scaleless food fish of the southern United States; often farmed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Synonyms:

catfish; mudcat

Hypernyms ("catfish" is a kind of...):

freshwater fish (flesh of fish from fresh water used as food)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Large ferocious northern deep-sea food fishes with strong teeth and no pelvic fins

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

catfish; wolf fish; wolffish

Hypernyms ("catfish" is a kind of...):

blennioid; blennioid fish (elongated mostly scaleless marine fishes with large pectoral fins and reduced pelvic fins)

Holonyms ("catfish" is a member of...):

Anarhichas; genus Anarhichas (type genus of the Anarhichadidae)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Any of numerous mostly freshwater bottom-living fishes of Eurasia and North America with barbels like whiskers around the mouth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

catfish; siluriform fish

Hypernyms ("catfish" is a kind of...):

malacopterygian; soft-finned fish (any fish of the superorder Malacopterygii)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "catfish"):

silurid; silurid fish (Old World freshwater catfishes having naked skin and a long anal fin more or less merged with the eellike caudal fin)

bullhead; bullhead catfish (any of several common freshwater catfishes of the United States)

channel cat; channel catfish; Ictalurus punctatus (freshwater food fish common throughout central United States)

flathead catfish; goujon; mudcat; Pylodictus olivaris; shovelnose catfish; spoonbill catfish (large catfish of central United States having a flattened head and projecting jaw)

armored catfish (South American catfish having the body covered with bony plates)

sea catfish (any of numerous marine fishes most of which are mouthbreeders; not used for food)

Holonyms ("catfish" is a member of...):

order Siluriformes; Siluriformes (an order of fish belonging to the superorder Malacopterygii including catfishes)

 Context examples 

E. ictaluri is pathogenic in catfish.

(Edwardsiella ictaluri, NCI Thesaurus)

Its body would have been fairly flat, like a combination of a shark and a catfish.

(Ancient sharks likely more diverse than previously thought, National Science Foundation)

Low mercury fish include salmon, shrimp, pollock, canned light tuna, tilapia, catfish, and cod.

(Brain benefits of aerobic exercise lost to mercury exposure, NIH)

Threatened social interest species include a number of stingless bees (known locally as uruçu, mandaçaia, and jandaíra), swamp ghost crabs, blue land crabs, a freshwater shrimp locally known as pitu, mangrove root crabs, catfish, yellowmouth groupers, jewfish, hammerhead sharks, among others.

(Over 300 animal species threatened in Bahia, Agência Brasil)

Fossils found on the expeditions indicate that the sea supported some of the largest sea snakes and catfish that ever lived, extinct fishes that were giants compared to their modern-day relatives, mollusk-crushing fishes, tropical invertebrates, long-snouted crocodilians, early mammals and mangrove forests, said O’Leary.

(Ancient Saharan seaway illustrates how Earth’s climate and creatures can undergo extreme change, National Science Foundation)

Dams block migration routes along the river gradient, which impacts migratory fish - and some, like the catfish, are the most valuable in the fishery sector in the Amazon because they tend to be larger.

(Amazon fish ‘face new threats’, SciDev.Net)