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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:

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

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

Crucially, adult cuttlefish only live about 12 to 18 months, Katz said, "so the success of one breeding season is going to determine the population next year".

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

He said there were "positive signs" as adult cuttlefish were continuing to lay eggs and the population may recover "over coming years".

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

Another kind is that of the mollusca, such as the cuttlefish; and lastly, the family of insects.

From Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History by William MacGillivray

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

At one of these we ordered a sea-dinner—crabs, cuttlefishes, soles, and turbots—which we ate at a table in the open air.

From New Italian sketches by John Addington Symonds

The higher forms, as the cuttlefishes, squids, and octopi, swim rapidly by ejecting a jet of water from the tubular siphon beneath the head.

From The Gutenberg Webster's Unabridged Dictionary Section C by Project Gutenberg

The cuttlefishes are molluscs and may be regarded as the highest of the backboneless or Invertebrate animals.

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

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