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cuttlefish

American  
[kuht-l-fish] / ˈkʌt lˌfɪʃ /

noun

  • cuttlefish,
    plural
  • cuttlefishes
    plural
  1. any of several cephalopods, especially of the genus Sepia, having eight arms with suckers and two tentacles, and ejecting a black, inklike fluid when in danger.


cuttlefish British  
/ ˈkʌtəlˌfɪʃ /

noun

  1. Sometimes shortened to: cuttle. any cephalopod mollusc of the genus Sepia and related genera, which occur near the bottom of inshore waters and have a broad flattened body: order Decapoda (decapods) See also squid 1

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of cuttlefish

1400–50; late Middle English codel, Old English cudele cuttlefish + fish


Vocabulary lists containing cuttlefish

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

In octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, ancient rearrangements of the genome may have helped establish new regulatory networks that contributed to the development of their exceptionally sophisticated nervous systems.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026

To investigate this possibility, the research team reconstructed the three-dimensional organization of the genome in octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026

This was particularly worrying as cuttlefish, along with other cephalopods like octopus and squid, are particularly vulnerable to the toxic algae.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

"While it appears likely the algal bloom has impacted cuttlefish numbers, researchers are working to determine whether this contributed to the reduced population or was just one of the potential impacts."

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

The former was made either of lampblack or some other sort of charcoal, or from the cuttlefish, and was called atramentum.

From Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life by T. L. (Thomas Louis) Haines

Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and his colleagues recently discovered that cuttlefishes actively express opsin genes throughout their skin, particularly in their fins and underbellies.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 20, 2012

Presumably the octopus and cuttlefish employ the same method of self-defense; they are not the only ones: Extremely sly and subtle fishes Are octopi or cuttlefishes.

From Time Magazine Archive

Seven years later Lamarck  gave some account of the genera of cuttlefishes.

From Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution His Life and Work by A. S. (Alpheus Spring) Packard

There are clouds of ink in the clear water, for, as Professor Hickson puts it, the cuttlefishes have thrown dust in the eyes of their enemies.

From The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told by J. Arthur Thomson

There are wonderfully complete fossil series, e.g. among cuttlefishes, in which we can almost see evolution in process.

From The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told by J. Arthur Thomson

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