sockeye

British

/ ˈsɒkˌaɪ /

noun

Also called: red salmon. a Pacific salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka, having red flesh and valued as a food fish

"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

Etymology

Origin of sockeye

by folk etymology from Salishan sukkegh

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:

sockeye

In the summer, the area is thronged by fishermen drawn to Bristol Bay for the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

In coho and sockeye salmon, parasite levels remained steady.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 1, 2026

Whilst bears are generally solitary, this one was heading to feast with others on the glut of sockeye salmon migrating upriver from the Pacific to their origin lake to spawn.

From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2025

If sockeye salmon was sold as salmon without any other qualifier, it was considered mislabelled.

From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2024

All the others, the blueback, the sockeye, the hump, the coho, and the dog salmon, run in the order named.

From Poor Man's Rock by Johnson, Frank Tenney

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