stickleback
any of the small, pugnacious, spiny-backed fishes of the family Gasterosteidae, inhabiting northern fresh waters and sea inlets, the male of which builds and guards the nest.
Origin of stickleback
1- Also called prickleback.
Words Nearby stickleback
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use stickleback in a sentence
Gudgeon eats stickleback, jack-pike eats gudgeon and grows fat, till at last the sturgeon in his armour eats him.
Joan of the Sword Hand | S(amuel) R(utherford) Crockett"Canova was by no means equal to stickleback," said Mr Bristles magisterially.
When our other friends leave me, stickleback, I hope you will stay for half an hour.
The rest of the party soon retired; and Bristles and stickleback began their confidential conclave.
The stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), too, has undoubtedly come to us from the north.
The History of the European Fauna | R. F. Scharff
British Dictionary definitions for stickleback
/ (ˈstɪkəlˌbæk) /
any small teleost fish of the family Gasterosteidae, such as Gasterosteus aculeatus (three-spined stickleback) of rivers and coastal regions and G. pungitius (ten-spined stickleback) confined to rivers. They have a series of spines along the back and occur in cold and temperate northern regions
Origin of stickleback
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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