snailfish

American

[sneyl-fish] / ˈsneɪlˌfɪʃ /

noun

any of several elongate, smooth-skinned fishes of the family Liparididae, inhabiting cold seas, having the ventral fins modified to form a sucking disk.

snailfish British

/ ˈsneɪlˌfɪʃ /

noun

another name for sea snail

"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 snailfish

First recorded in 1830–40; snail + fish

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:

snailfish

The deepest marine vertebrate life filmed before this expedition was at 8,336m - a snailfish that was filmed swimming in a deep ocean trench off the coast of Japan in 2023.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2025

In addition to jellyfish, crustaceans and macroalgae were other important components of the diet of some species, while fish species such as the polar cod or snailfish played an important role for other species.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 14, 2024

Though the team couldn’t identify the type of snailfish, two others from the species Pseudoliparis belyaevi were caught in baited traps nearby, at a depth of 8,022 meters.

From Scientific American ● Apr. 7, 2023

A team of Australian and Japanese researchers has set the record for the deepest fish ever filmed, after observing a type of snailfish swimming more than five miles underwater.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 5, 2023

The snailfish, of the Pseudoliparis belyaevi species, are the first to be caught below 8,000 metres, the expedition said.

From Reuters ● Apr. 3, 2023

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023