eel

en-verb

eel (third-person singular simple present eels, present participle eeling, simple past and past participle eeled)

eels (present singular third-person)
eeling (participle present)
eeled (participle past)
eeled (past)

From Middle English el, from Old English ǣl (“eel”), from Proto-West Germanic *āl, from Proto-Germanic *ēlaz (“eel”), which is of unknown origin.
Cognates
Cognate with West Frisian iel (“eel”), Dutch aal (“eel”), German Low German Aal, Ool (“eel”), German Aal (“eel”), Swedish, Danish and Norwegian ål (“eel”).


glut

From Middle English glotien, from Old French gloter, glotir (compare French engloutir (“to devour”), glouton (“glutton”)), from Latin gluttiō, gluttīre (“I swallow”). Akin to Russian глотать (glotatʹ, “to swallow”).

Anguilla anguilla
Anguilla anguilla#Translingual

The broad-nosed eel (Anguilla anguilla, syn. Anguilla latirostris), found in Europe, Asia, the West Indies, etc.


elver

Variant of eelfare, originally "brood of young eels", from Middle English *elfare, *elvare, from el (“eel”) + fare (“group of journeyers”). Equivalent to eel + fare.
Liberman instead connects the second element of this word to a putative Old English suffix *-for(e), but there is no need to posit such a suffix when the traditional etymology suffices. Furthermore, such a suffix is not securely attested, and the spelling of the word's earliest attestation (as yele fare, ell vare) implies Middle English /aː/.

af

When these glass eels enter freshwater they transform again into elvers – miniature versions of the adult eels.

2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 69:


morris

From Morris, the surname of its discoverer.

w:Webster's Dictionary#Webster's New International Dictionary 1909

(obsolete) The young of the conger eel or similar fish, originally thought to be a separate species.


moray

From Portuguese moreia, from Latin murēna (“sea eel, lamprey”), from Ancient Greek σμύραινα (smúraina), from σμύρος (smúros, “sea eel”).

Any of the large cosmopolitan carnivorous eels of the family Muraenidae.


moray eel

Any of various brightly colored marine eels of the family Muraenidae, of warm coastal waters.


conger eel

Any of various large marine eels of the family Congridae, having no scales and found in temperate and tropical coastal waters.


sniggle

en-verb

sniggle (third-person singular simple present sniggles, present participle sniggling, simple past and past participle sniggled)

sniggles (present singular third-person)
sniggling (participle present)
sniggled (participle past)
sniggled (past)

See snig (“a kind of eel”) + -le (frequentative verbal suffix).

suffix

But rampant poaching (the correct term for catching a grown-up eel with bait is to “sniggle”, though elvers are caught with something more like a giant sieve) is now prompting authorities to crack down well in advance of next year’s season.

[2012 December 1, “Transparent gold”, in The Economist, →ISSN:

(intransitive) To fish for eels by thrusting a baited needle or hook into their dens.


grig

Troilus and Cressida
William Shakespeare

The word is often used in the phrase "merry as a grig". The word is of uncertain origin, though various theories have been suggested, such as a corruption of "merry as a cricket" or "merry as a Greek", as in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: "Then she's a merry Greek indeed." Johnson suggested that the word originally meant "anything below the natural size" (compare Swedish krik and Scots crick).

The black rooks will fly away, my son, and you'll come back as brown as a berry, and as merry as a grig.

1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 5, in Lud-in-the-Mist:

[W]e assembled at one o'clock, at two sat down to dinner, consisting of capital stewed grigs, a dish Mrs Burt was famous for dressing, a large joint of roast or boiled meat, with proper vegetables and a good-sized pudding or pie […] .

1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 41

Specifically, the broad-nosed eel. See glut.


grig

The further method of tillage pursued, was to make fallows; and if the season permitted, so that the ground could be cleared and burnt off, to destroy the grig or heath, […]

1791, Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Transactions of the Society of Arts, volume 9, page 80:


spitchcock

American Journal of Philology
Johns Hopkins University Press

The noun is derived from Middle English spiche-coke (“eel split lengthwise and broiled”). The further etymology is uncertain; the following possibilities have been suggested:
* From Middle English *speche, *spiche (“to split”) + cock, coken (“to allow (something) to cook; to cook”) (from cok (“person who cooks food, cook”), from Old English cōc (“a cook”)).
* From spik (“animal fat, especially lard”) (from Old English spiċ (“bacon; lard”)), spik, spike (“large nail; pointed stud”) (possibly from Old Norse spík, spíkr (“nail”)), or spit, spite (“rod for cooking meat, spit; pointed object”) (from Old English spitu, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“sharp point; stick”)) + cok (“male of the common domestic fowl, cock, rooster”) (from Old English coc, cocc).
The verb is probably derived from the noun.

inh

(obsolete) A method of cooking an eel (or occasionally some other fish) by splitting it along the back, cutting it into pieces, and broiling or frying it.

(by extension, archaic or obsolete) An eel (or other fish) prepared in this way.

змиорка на шиш

eel or other fish prepared by spatchcocking


spitchcock

en-verb

spitchcock (third-person singular simple present spitchcocks, present participle spitchcocking, simple past and past participle spitchcocked)

spitchcocks (present singular third-person)
spitchcocking (participle present)
spitchcocked (participle past)
spitchcocked (past)

(transitive, cooking, archaic or obsolete) To cook (an eel, or occasionally some other fish) by splitting it along the back, cutting it into pieces, and broiling or frying it.


European eel

A snake-like fish, reaching between 60 cm and 1.5 m in length, Anguilla anguilla.


slippery as an eel

(simile, colloquial) So slippery that it is almost impossible to hold.


snig

Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *snigilaz or *snagilaz; related to snail.


leptocephalus

From (obsolete) genus name Leptocephalus, equivalent to Ancient Greek λεπτός (leptós, “thin, slim”) + κεφαλή (kephalḗ, “head”).

der

There they spawn, and from the fertilized eggs emerge the leptocephali, which then ride on currents all the way back to Europe.

The flat, transparent larva of an eel, originally thought to be a distinct species.


eelfare

(now rare) The movement of eels, especially migratory.


eely

en-adj

eely (comparative eelier, superlative eeliest)

eelier (comparative)
eeliest (superlative)

The great ugly sharky fish was hooked forward by Josh and placed in a great basket, where it lay writhing its eely tail, and flapping its wing-like fins as the boat slowly progressed, and bait after bait was replaced, many being untouched, the thornback, skate, or ray being the only fish taken.

That was a great long eely thing; but Joe Cross here says this was more like a great turtle, with flippers and a long neck, and a head like a snake."

1904, George Manville Fenn, The Ocean Cat's Paw:

Any eely creature that manages to blow itself up from “Pink, lank and warm” to a long wiener doing the hula tends to seize the imagination of us moderns.

Veteran alto saxist Lou Donaldson faces the audience with a raised eyebrow and a toothy grin, and his horn's high-pitched, eely timbre--which still has plenty of the grease that made him a soul-jazz hero in the 60s and 70s--complements his squeaky voice.

2004 August 13, Neil Tesser, “Lou Donaldson Quartet with Dr. Lonnie Smith”, in Chicago Reader:

Resembling an eel: long, thin and slippery.


gulper eel

Any of many fish of the order Saccopharyngiformes that resemble eels, and which are sometimes treated as true eels, members of Anguilliformes.

A pelican eel of species Eurypharynx pelecanoides of deep-sea eels.


whiptail gulper

en-noun

whiptail gulper (plural whiptail gulpers)

A species of gulper eel, Saccopharynx schmidti


fausen

The wave-sprung entrails, about which fausens and other fish
Did shoal,

[1611?], Homer, “Book XXI”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume I, London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC:


longneck eel

A type of pelagic fish found in the middle and depths of most oceans, of the family Derichthyidae.


anguillid

(zoology) Any member of the family Anguillidae of eels.


chlopsid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Chlopsidae.


congrid

(zoology) Any eel of the family Congridae.


cyematid

(ichthyology) Any fish in the family Cyematidae of bobtail snipe eels.


derichthyid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Derichthyidae.


eurypharyngid

Clipping of translingual Eurypharyngidae

clipping

translingual <i class="Latn mention" lang="mul">Eurypharyngidae</i>

(ichthyology) Any fish in the family Eurypharyngidae, the pelican eels.


heterenchelyid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Heterenchelyidae.


monognathid

(ichthyology) Any fish in the family Monognathidae of onejaws.


moringuid

(zoology) Any in the family Moringuidae of eels.


muraenesocid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Muraenesocidae.


muraenid

The posterior nostril in xenocongrids lies immediately before the center of the eye, on the outside of the upper lip, or inside the confines of the mouth; in the muraenids, it nearly always lies above the eye.

1993, James E. Böhlke, Charles C. G. Chaplin, Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical Waters, page 70:

(zoology) Any eel in the family Muraenidae.


nemichthyid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Nemichthyidae.


nettastomatid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Nettastomatidae.


ophichthid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Ophichthidae.


saccopharyngid

(ichthyology) Any in the family Saccopharyngidae of gulper eels.


serrivomerid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Serrivomeridae.


synaphobranchid

(zoology) Any eel in the family Synaphobranchidae.


silver eel

Ariosoma mellissii, a rare tropical marine eel.


cutthroat eel

Any of the family Synaphobranchidae of eels.


pelican eel

An eel-like deep-sea fish (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), the only known member of the genus Eurypharynx and family Eurypharyngidae, which is rarely seen by humans, although occasionally caught in fishing nets.


Japanese eel

Am eel of species Anguilla japonica, found in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, as well as the northern Philippines.


marbled eel

Any of various eels, most commonly the tropical eel (Anguilla marmorata), but also eels of other species:

Callechelys marmorata (marbled snake eel)

Mastacembelus vanderwaali (ocellated spiny eel, marbled spiny-eel)

Mastacembelus armatus (large spiny eel, marbled spiny eel)

Synbranchus marmoratus (marbled swamp eel, mottled swamp eel


garden eel

These eels are often found in groups, poking their heads up from their burrows, and thus resemble plants in a garden.

Any of the subfamily Heterocongrinae in the conger eel family Congridae, which live in burrows on the sea floor.


goldentail

blue-throated goldentail
blue-throated goldentail#English

goldentail moray
goldentail moray#English


goldentail moray

en-noun

goldentail moray (plural goldentail morays)

A species of moray eel found in the western Atlantic, Gymnothorax miliaris.


congroid

clipping

translingual <i class="Latn mention" lang="mul">Congroidei</i>


fangtooth snake-eel

en-noun

fangtooth snake-eel (plural fangtooth snake-eels)

A burrow-dwelling eel of species Aplatophis chauliodus, native to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.


snake-eel

Any member of the family Ophichthidae of eels (order Anguilliformes).


snowflake eel

The Snowflake eel, a kind of moray, is harmless if you leave it alone and refrain from drinking its blood (which is toxic).

2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 68:


snowflake moray

snowflake moray (plural snowflake morays)

Any member of species Echidna nebulosa of moray eels, widespread through the Indo-Pacific.


mastacembeloid

Any spiny eel / swamp eel of the suborder Mastacembeloidei


daggertooth pike conger

daggertooth pike conger (plural daggertooth pike congers)

Muraenesox cinereus, a species of eel native to the Pacific and Indian Oceans.


laced moray

Gymnothorax favagineus, a species of moray eel.


Mauritanian shortface eel

Mauritanian shortface eel (plural Mauritanian shortface eels)

Panturichthys mauritanicus, a species of mud eel.


deepwater big-eyed worm eel

deepwater big-eyed worm eel (plural deepwater big-eyed worm eels)

Scolecenchelys castlei, a species of snake-eel found off the coast of New Zealand.


sawtooth eel

Any of the Serrivomeridae family of eels.


short-finned eel

short-finned eel (plural short-finned eels)


goldspotted snake eel

goldspotted snake eel (plural goldspotted snake eels)

Myrichthys ocellatus, a species of snake eel found off the eastern coasts of North and Central America, in coral reefs.