Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Swordfish |
SwordfishNoun1. Flesh of swordfish usually served as steaks. 2. Large toothless marine food fish with a long swordlike upper jaw; not completely cold-blooded i.e. they are able to warm their brains and eyes: worldwide in warm waters but feed on cold ocean floor coming to surface at night. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "swordfish" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1596. (references) |
Synonym: SwordfishSynonym: Xiphias gladius (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) are large, highly migratory predators characterized by a long, flat bill in contrast to the smooth, round bill of the marlins. Swordfish are elongate, round-bodied, and lack teeth and scales as adults. They reach a maximum size of 14 feet and 1,190 pounds. The International Game Fish Association's all-tackle angling record is a 1,182-pound fish taken off Chile in 1953.
Swordfish are distributed throughout the world's marine ecosystem, in tropical, subtropical and temperate waters and tend to concentrate where major ocean currents meet, and along temperature fronts. They inhabit the mixed surface waters where temperatures are greater than 15C but also can move into water as cool as 5C for short periods aided by specially adapted brain and eye heat exchange organs.
Areas of greater apparent abundance occur north of Hawaii along the North Pacific transition zone, along the west coasts of the U.S and Mexico and in the western Pacific, east of Japan. Migration patterns have not been described although tag release and recapture data indicate an eastward movement from the central Pacific, north of Hawaii, toward the U.S. West Coast. Acoustic tracking indicates some diel movement from deeper depths during the daytime and moving into the mixed surface water at night. At times they appear to follow the deep scattering layer, and small prey, as they undertake these vertical movements.
Females grow larger than males, as males over 300 pounds are rare. Females mature at 4-5 years of age in northwest Pacific while males mature first at about 3 to 4 years. In the North Pacific, batch spawning occurs in water warmer than 24C from March to July and year round in the equatorial Pacific. Adult swordfish forage includes pelagic fish including small tuna, dorado, barracuda, flying fish, mackerel, as well as benthic species of hake and rockfish. Squid are important when available. Swordfish likely have few predators as adults although juveniles are vulnerable to predation by large pelagic fish.
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Swordfish has several meanings:
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Swordfish."
Crosswords: Swordfish |
| English words defined with "swordfish": Banner fish ♦ Cutlass fish ♦ Lily iron ♦ Rapier fish ♦ Swordfish sucker. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "swordfish": 320xx. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "swordfish": Xiphias. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Tongue Twisters | No shark shares swordfish steak. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Wrestling Swordfish (1932) Sharks and Swordfish (1931) The Swordfish (1922) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The Mediterranean is a semi-enclosed sea relatively low in nutrients and fishery productivity. It has become increasingly polluted owing to runoff by nutrients from waste disposal and agriculture. Catch of key species such as Black Sea anchovy has fallen, relecting environmental degradation. High exploitation levels have also depleted important stocks such as blue fin tuna and swordfish. Credit: Fisheries. |  | Loading frozen bait from Point Judith, Rhode Island, on a swordfish boat. Credit: Fisheries. |
 | A swordfish harpoon boat. Credit: Fisheries. |  | F/V JANICE ANN fishes for swordfish. Credit: Fisheries. |
 | Swordfish (Tetrapturus), yellowfin tuna, and yellowtail, caught with rod and reel at Santa Catalina Island. In: "Sport Fishing in California and Florida," by Charles F. Holder. Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXVIII 1908, Part I, p. 207, Plate VI. Credit: Fisheries. |  | Methods of swordfish capture in the Mediterranean Sea From Report U. S. Fish Commission, Part VIII, 1880. Credit: National Marine Fisheries Historical Image Collection. |
 | Plate 115. The Swordfish. Xiphias gladius, L. Credit: National Marine Fisheries Historical Image Collection. |  | Photographed circa 1939, with a Fairey "Swordfish" aircraft taking off as another approaches from astern. Credit: NAVY. |
 | Swordfish leaping on line. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Swordfish. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Swordfish" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 84.29% of the time. "Swordfish" is used about 70 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) | 84.29% | 59 | 44,010 |
| Noun (proper) | 15.71% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Total | 100.00% | 70 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "swordfish": swordfish sucker. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; 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 "swordfish"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 箭鱼. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | sværdfisk (broadbill). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | zwaardvis (broadbill). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | اره ماهی . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | miekkakala (sword-fish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | poisson-épée, espadon. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | schwertfisch (sword fish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | ξιφιός (broadbill), ξιφίασ, ξιφίας (broadbill). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | kardhal (sword-fish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | ikan todak. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | pescespada, pesce spada (broadbill). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 梶木 (marlin). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | かじき (marlin). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | saaue marrey (sawfish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ordfishsway espadarte (sword-fish). (various references) меч-рыба (sword-fish). (various references) pisci spata. (various references) pez espada (broadbill), espadarte (broadbill). (various references) chuchunge. (various references) svärdfisk (broadbill), svärdfish. (various references) ปลาขนา"ใหญ่จำพวก Xiphiidae. (various references) kılıçbalığı. (various references) меч-риба. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | xiphias, Xiphias gladius, Xiphias gladius (Linnaeus). (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "swordfish": swordfishes. (additional references) | |
| |
"Swordfish" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: swardfish. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "swordfish" (pronounced sô"rdfi'sh) |
| 4 | -d f i' sh | goldfish, redfish. |
| 3 | -f i' sh | Angelfish, catfish, crawfish, cuttlefish, dealfish, dogfish, flatfish, goosefish, hagfish, jellyfish, jewfish, lungfish, needlefish, pipefish, sailfish, selfish, shellfish, starfish, sunfish, whitefish. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-f-h-i-o-r-s-s-w" | |
-3 letters: fiords, swords, whosis. | |
-4 letters: dhows, dross, fidos, fiord, fords, frosh, frows, howfs, shows, shris, sords, swish, sword, whids, whirs, words. | |
-5 letters: dhow, dish, diss, dors, doss, dows, fido, fids, firs, fish, ford, foss, frow, hiss, hods, howf, hows, rhos, rids, rifs, rods, rows, shod, show, shri, sirs, sods, sord, sori, sows, sris, whid. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-f-h-i-o-r-s-s-w" | |
+2 letters: swordfishes. | |
| 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. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Translations: Ancient | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
