HAGFISH (hagfishes)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: hagfishes   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does hagfish mean? 

• HAGFISH (noun)
  The noun HAGFISH has 1 sense:

1. eellike cyclostome having a tongue with horny teeth in a round mouth surrounded by eight tentacles; feeds on dead or trapped fishes by boring into their bodies

  Familiarity information: HAGFISH used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HAGFISH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Eellike cyclostome having a tongue with horny teeth in a round mouth surrounded by eight tentacles; feeds on dead or trapped fishes by boring into their bodies

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

hag; hagfish; slime eels

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

agnathan; jawless fish; jawless vertebrate (eel-shaped vertebrate without jaws or paired appendages including the cyclostomes and some extinct forms)

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

Myxine glutinosa (typical hagfish)

eptatretus (a fossil hagfish of the genus Eptatretus)

Myxinikela siroka (fossil hagfish of the Pennsylvanian period (c. 300 million years ago) that resembled modern hagfishes)

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

family Myxinidae; Myxinidae (slime-producing marine animals: hagfishes)