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tuna

1
[too-nuh, tyoo-]
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noun, plural (especially collectively) tu·na, (especially referring to two or more kinds or species) tu·nas.

any of several large food and game fishes of the family Scombridae, inhabiting temperate and tropical seas.Compare albacore, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna.
any of various related fishes.
Also called tuna fish. the flesh of the tuna, used as food.

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Origin of tuna

1
1880–85, Americanism; < American Spanish, variant of Spanish atún < Arabic al the + tūn < Greek thýnnos tunny

tuna

2
[too-nuh, tyoo-]

noun

any of various prickly pears, especially either of two erect, treelike species, Opuntia tuna or O. ficus-indica, of Mexico, bearing a sweet, edible fruit.
the fruit of these plants.

Origin of tuna

2
1545–55; < Spanish < Taino
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for tuna

Contemporary Examples of tuna

Historical Examples of tuna

  • Huge fishes like the tarpon, jewfish or tuna are sooner brought to gaff by "pumping," as it is called.

    Favorite Fish and Fishing

    James Alexander Henshall

  • What with kite and drag and friction of line in the water, that tuna had great strain upon him.

  • There lives no fisherman but what there lives a tuna that can take the conceit and the fight out of him.

  • The valley is connected to the north with the Tuna plateau, and is almost as fertile in its lower stretches as Chumbi.

  • The boatman whose attention we had attracted had now come up and was approaching the schools of tuna some distance below us.

British Dictionary definitions for tuna

tuna

1

noun plural -na or -nas

Also called: tunny any of various large marine spiny-finned fishes of the genus Thunnus, esp T. thynnus, chiefly of warm waters: family Scombridae . They have a spindle-shaped body and widely forked tail, and are important food fishes
any of various similar and related fishes

Word Origin for tuna

C20: from American Spanish, from Spanish atún, from Arabic tūn, from Latin thunnus tunny, from Greek

tuna

2

noun

any of various tropical American prickly pear cacti, esp Opuntia tuna, that are cultivated for their sweet edible fruits
the fruit of any of these cacti

Word Origin for tuna

C16: via Spanish from Taino
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
Word Origin and History for tuna
n.

1881, from American Spanish (California) tuna, from Spanish atun, from Arabic tun, from Latin thunnus "tunny" (see tunny).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper