goby
Americannoun
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goby,
plural
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gobies
plural
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any small marine or freshwater fish of the family Gobiidae, often having the pelvic fins united to form a suctorial disk.
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any fish of the closely related family Eleotridae, having the pelvic fins separate.
noun
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any small spiny-finned fish of the family Gobiidae, of coastal or brackish waters, having a large head, an elongated tapering body, and the ventral fins modified as a sucker
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any other gobioid fish
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of goby
1760–70; < Latin gōbius gudgeon (spelling variant of gōbiō or cōbius ) < Greek kōbiós
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:
They have seen spider crabs taking a stroll, starfish, king scallops and goby fish.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
“The goby gods are working with us,” said Rosi Dagit, principal conservation biologist for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains and ringleader of the rescue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 23, 2025
On their honeymoon, they went to a southern point in San Diego to collect goby fish specimens.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 5, 2023
But this year, the event was on the verge of cancellation after the belated discovery of the tidewater goby, an endangered fish, in an underpass on the biking course.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2023
Ripple was a type of fish called a goby.
From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown
To save the gobies from that fate, scientists and citizen volunteers arrived on Jan. 17 and used giant nets that served as sieves to retrieve the fish that rarely exceed a length of two inches.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
Before the gobies were released, Robert Dorame, tribal chair of the Gabrielino-Tongva Indians of California, led attendees in a blessing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
The Palisades fire that sparked Jan. 7 tore through the area, scorching all of the critical habitat for the gobies and an endangered population of steelhead trout that occupied the same watershed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
Another endangered fish, northern tidewater gobies, were rescued from the same watershed shortly before the steelhead were liberated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2025
“I was born a female, and then I changed to a male. We gobies do that from time to time.”
From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
