Eel
[iːl] or [il]
Definition
(noun.) voracious snakelike marine or freshwater fishes with smooth slimy usually scaleless skin and having a continuous vertical fin but no ventral fins.
(noun.) the fatty flesh of eel; an elongate fish found in fresh water in Europe and America; large eels are usually smoked or pickled.
Editor: Myra--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) An elongated fish of many genera and species. The common eels of Europe and America belong to the genus Anguilla. The electrical eel is a species of Gymnotus. The so called vinegar eel is a minute nematode worm. See Conger eel, Electric eel, and Gymnotus.
Editor: Paula
Definition
the body is much elongated cylindrical or ribbon-shaped.—ns. Eel′-bas′ket a basket for catching eels; Eel′-pout in England a Burbot (q.v.); in parts of Scotland a Blenny (q.v.): a well-known fish with a slimy body living chiefly in mud; Eel′-spear an instrument with broad prongs for catching eels.
Editor: Meredith
Unserious Contents or Definition
To dream of an eel is good if you can maintain your grip on him. Otherwise fortune will be fleeting. To see an eel in clear water, denotes, for a woman, new but evanescent pleasures. To see a dead eel, signifies that you will overcome your most maliciously inclined enemies. To lovers, the dream denotes an end to long and hazardous courtship by marriage.
Edited by Dorothy
Examples
- He had a shilling in his pocket; and he dined sumptuously, he tells me, on a black-pudding, an eel-pie, and a bottle of ginger-beer. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and returning said 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' would THAT be Terewth? Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- If you're an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- He used to be slender as an eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent--a beef-eater tendency. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- Caliphronas made a dart at Crispin with uplifted hand, but Maurice sprang up and caught him in his arms, where he writhed like an eel. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- He's as slippery as an eel, he is. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- What is an Electric Eel? Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- Ye don't think I did business with you, down in Natchez, for nothing, Haley; I've learned to hold an eel, when I catch him. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- On an eel-pasty he particularly doted. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- If he'd hear to me, he wouldn't trust any on ye--slippery as eels! Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- His errors are readily comprehensible, as, for example, in attributing spontaneous generation to eels, the habits and mode of reproduction of which only recent studies have made fully known. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- Then we ate _paella_ with fresh sea food, clams in their shells, mussels, crayfish, and small eels. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- But when they are hot and roused, there is a definite attraction--a curious kind of full electric fluid--like eels. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- Aye, when I think of those smallest eels, tiny, delicate and in mounds on the plate. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- The eels can be taken by driving horses into the water to be shocked and seizing them when thus weakened. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- Jane, said he, surveying even the elder sister with some interest, Eels will be sorry he cried off. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- Eels, frogs, oysters, occupied an important place in the royal bill of fare. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Inputed by Conrad