Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Abalone |
AbaloneNoun1. Any of various large edible marine gastropods of the genus Haliotis having an ear-shaped shell with pearly interior. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
1: Abalone, the Spanish name used in California for various species of the shellfish of the Haliotidae family, with a richly coloured shell yielding mother-of-pearl. This sort of Haliotis is also commonly called ear-shell, in Guernsey ormer (Fr. ormier, for oreille de mer), and paua in New Zealand.Abalone is also prevalent in Australian coastal waters and is highly valued. There is an extensive black market in the collection and export of Australian Abalone meat.
The abalone shell is found especially at Santa Barbara and other places on the Californian coast from the south up to Ford Bragg and beyond, and when polished makes a beautiful ornament. The mollusc itself is often eaten, and dried for consumption in China and Japan.
2: A game, see Abalone game
Source (for 1): An unnamed encyclopedia via a project that puts out-of-copyright texts onto the Internet. This is from a very old source, and reflects the thinking of about 1900 in the UK. -- BryceHarrington
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Abalone."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Abalone is a two-player strategy game which can be quaintly summarized as "sumo wrestling with marbles". The board consists of 61 circles arranged in a hexagon five on a side. Each player has fourteen marbles which rest in the circles, and are initially arrayed as shown below.
Initial PositionThe player with the black marbles always moves first. The marbles are moved in lines of one, two, or three, either inline or broadside.
Black opens with a broadside move
White counters with an inline moveWhen one player has numerical superiority in a line (three to two, three to one, or two to one) he may push the opposing marbles with an inline move. Broadside pushes are not allowed. The diagrams below illustrate three black pushes. The objective is to push six opposing marbles off the edges of the board.
Before black push After black push The diagram below illustrates several situations in which it is impossible for black to push. In the top line black does not have numerical superiority. In the middle line, black has four marbles to three, but a maximum of three marbles may be moved each turn, so again no push is possible. In the bottom line black cannot push because it is forbidden to dislodge one's own marbles.
Black has no available pushes
The notation for recording moves gives the letters A-I to the horizontal lines, and the numbers 1-9 to northwest-southeast diagonals.
I O O O O O H O O O O O O G + + O O O + + F + + + + + + + + E + + + + + + + + + D + + + + + + + + 9 C + + @ @ @ + + 8 B @ @ @ @ @ @ 7 A @ @ @ @ @ 6 1 2 3 4 5An inline move can be denoted by the movement of the trailing marble. Notation for broadside moves is not entirely standardized.
The rules can be mastered in a minute or two, and the flow of the game is fast-paced. Abalone tends to draw in new players much more quickly than complicated, slow games such as chess. Also, pushing the marbles is physically satisfying. The click-click-click as one's line of marbles pushes the enemy back is almost musical.
Here are some moves from a sample midgame. No marbles have yet been ejected in the diagrammed position:
1. F5-E5 : Black disrupts two white lines
1... C4-B3* : White pushes a black marble off the board.
2. C2-B2* : Black pushes a white marble off the board.
Unfortunately, the dynamics of the basic game have one serious flaw: a good, conservative player can set up his marbles in a defensive wedge, and ward off all attacks indefinitely. An attacker may try to outflank this wedge, or lure it into traps, but such advances are more dangerous to the attacker than the defender.
Black can defend foreverThere are several solutions to this conundrum. First, in tournaments, a judge may penalize a player for playing defensively. This solution is somewhat unsatisfactory, given that a judge may not always be present, and that "defensive play" is a subjective notion.
Second, several variations of the rules of play have been developed for the same board and marbles. Unfortunately, none of the variations has the same appealing simplicity of the original.
Third, and perhaps best, alternative starting positions have been designed to make the formation of stalemate wedges less likely. Experiments are still underway to find an opening position which neither devolves into a draw, nor gives too great an advantage to the first player. One popular attempt is the marguerite position displayed below.
Marguerite starting positionAbalone can also be played by three persons using the same board with (less) marbles in three different colours.
The complete rules, strategy hints, and on-line play are available in English, French, and German at http://www.abalonegames.com/
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Abalone game."
Synonym: AbaloneSynonym: ear-shell (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Abalone |
| English words defined with "abalone": Aspidobranchia ♦ Zygobranchia. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "abalone": hunter, skin diver ♦ salvage diver ♦ UNDERWATER HUNTER-TRAPPER. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Abalone" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Italian (abalone), Portuguese (abalone). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Abalone Industry (1913) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Photographed in 1917-1918. Built in 1913 as a pleasure craft, the motor boat Abalone was acquired by the Navy on 29 April 1917 and placed in commission on 10 May 1917. She was returned to her owner on 24 December 1918. Credit: NAVY. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Smudge" by Michelle Kwajafa Commentary: "Smudge stick burning in an abalone shell." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Author Unknown | A man crossed an abalone and a crocodile hoping to get an abadile. However, he got a crocabalone. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Oman | Fisheries--Kingfish, tuna, other fish, shrimp, lobster, abalone. (references) |
Japan | Exports of U.S. species which notably increased to Japan from 1999 to 2000 are chilled skipjack ($190,000, up 100 times), frozen sardine ($8.0 million, up 2.7 times), frozen cod roe ($302 million, up 73 percent), other frozen fish roe ($12.5 million, up 69 percent), frozen herring ($955,000, up 78 percent), salted herring roe ($7.3 million, up 45 percent), frozen king crab ($59.6 million, up 38 percent), live spiny lobster ($413,000, up 4.72 times), live king crab ($241,000, up 2.52 times), live abalone ($2.5 million, up 2.38 times), other prepared fish ($993,000, up 5.19 times), ikura salmon eggs ($116 million, up 80 percent), caviar and caviar substitute ($1.6 million, up 217 times), and worked cultured pearls ($700,000, up 4.64 times). (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Abalone" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 83.33% of the time. "Abalone" is used about 6 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 83.33% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 16.67% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 6 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "abalone"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 鲍鱼, 鮑魚 , 鮑 . (various references) | |
Danish | en art søøre (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear). (various references) | |
Dutch | haliotis (ear shell, haliotis). (various references) | |
Esperanto | haliotiso (ear shell, haliotis). (various references) | |
Finnish | abaloni (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear), merikorva (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear). (various references) | |
French | ormet (European abalone), ormeau européen (European abalone), ormeau d'Europe (European abalone), ormeau (European abalone), oreille de mer (European abalone). (various references) | |
German | Seeohr (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear), Pfahlmuschel (blue mussel, common mussel), Gemeines Seeohr (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear). (various references) | |
Greek | είδος γαστρόποδου, είδος γαστερόποδου, αυτί της θάλασσας (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear). (various references) | |
Hebrew | אזן הים. (various references) | |
Indonesian | tiram (oyster), kerang laut. (various references) | |
Italian | abalone, orecchia di mare (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 鰒 , 鮑 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | あわび. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | abaloneay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | abalone, orelha do mar (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear), molusco da califórnia. (various references) | |
Spanish | oreja de mar (sea-ear). (various references) | |
Swedish | europeiskt havsöra (ear shell, European abalone, ormer, sea ear). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Haliotis tuberculata (Linnaeus). (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "abalone": abalones. (additional references) | |
| |
"Abalone" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Abalance, abalong, abaloni, Abeline, Aberllong, abolone, Absalon, Absaroke, ajalan, avaline, Baldonnel, balone, balonee, Gaberone, Jabalpore, sabayon. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "abalone" (pronounced a'bulō"nē) |
| 6 | -b u l ō" n ē | baloney, Bologna. |
| 3 | -ō" n ē | boney, bony, Coney, crony, macaroni, mony, negroni, pepperoni, phoney, phony, pony, rigatoni, Stoney, stony, Toney, Tony. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-e-l-n-o" | |
-2 letters: alane, alone, anole, banal, beano, noble. | |
-3 letters: able, aeon, alae, alan, alba, aloe, anal, anoa, baal, bale, bane, bean, blae, bola, bole, bone, ebon, elan, enol, lane, lean, leno, loan, lobe, lone, nabe, noel, olea. | |
-4 letters: aal, aba, abo, ala, alb, ale, ana, ane, baa, bal, ban, bel, ben, boa, eon, lab, lea. | |
-5 letters: aa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-b-e-l-n-o" | |
+1 letter: abalones, atonable, loanable. | |
+2 letters: canoeable, nonarable. | |
+3 letters: abominable, actionable, belladonna, nonsalable, nontaxable, obtainable, outbalance, pardonable, reasonable, reasonably, seasonable, seasonably, zabaglione. | |
+4 letters: accountable, balletomane, battlewagon, belladonnas, commandable, concealable, confabulate, containable, detonatable, diagnosable, elaborating, elaboration, fashionable, flamboyance, labiodental, melanoblast, noncallable, nontaxables, organizable, outbalanced, outbalances, overbalance, paleobotany, treasonable, treasonably, unadoptable, unavoidable, unelaborate, unfavorable, zabagliones. | |
+5 letters: aberrational, adorableness, balletomanes, balletomania, battlewagons, cannonballed, confabulated, confabulates, contrastable, diagnoseable, downloadable, elaborations, elasmobranch, fashionables, flamboyances, geobotanical, incomparable, labiodentals, melanoblasts, microbalance, nonbacterial, nonbreakable, nonflammable, nonmalleable, nonrepayable, normalizable, oblanceolate, overbalanced, overbalances, paleobotanic, sanctionable, saponifiable, somnambulate, transposable, unaffordable, unfathomable, unobtainable, unpardonable, unreasonable, unreasonably, unseasonable, unseasonably. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Translations: Ancient 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
