stickleback

American  

[stik-uhl-bak] / ˈstɪk əlˌbæk /

noun

1. 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.

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stickleback British  

/ ˈstɪkəlˌbæk /

noun

1. 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

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Etymology

Origin of stickleback

1400–50; late Middle English stykylbak, equivalent to Old English sticol scaly + bæc back ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stickleback

The group continued to move the fish in the evening and the following morning finding species including salmon, trout and stickleback.

From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025

Then the first stickleback will go a little further, taking its turn being the one nearest the predator.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 20, 2023

In Big Bear Valley, burros pose the greatest threat to such rare and endangered species as Big Bear checkerbloom flowers, slender-petaled mustard plants, and the unarmored threespine stickleback fish.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2023

It opened in 1934 near the Ballard Locks, featuring Alaska stickleback, pipe fish, yellow-banded perch, blennies and cultus cod, according to HistoryLink.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2022

We have the same change in tiddlebat for stickleback, a word which exemplifies another point in baby phonetics, viz. the loss of initial s-, as in the classic instance tummy.

From The Romance of Names by Ernest Weekley