tilapia
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tilapia
First recorded in 1845–50; New Latin; further origin uncertain
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:
He sells a large tilapia for £5, where a large cod costs £9.40.
From BBC ● Feb. 16, 2026
That makes you a salmon rather than a tilapia, only you no longer have to swim upstream.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 12, 2026
He discovered tens of thousands of dead tilapia floating in his ponds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
Although red snapper is faring poorly in the wild, replacing it with tilapia is not helping snapper conservation.
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2024
Thailand had experienced outbreaks of blackchin tilapia in the past, but none has been as widespread as this most recent episode.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2024
With the exception of the snapper, each fish had at least one of us guessing it was tilapia; the actual tilapias didn’t garner any more correct guesses than the non-tilapias.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 24, 2016
Rice grows in flooded paddies that are shared with tilapias -- African fish -- which eat algae and . water ferns and in turn fertilize the water with their waste.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
