eel

UK/iːl/ US/ˈil/ fairly common

noun

the fatty flesh of eel; an elongate fish found in fresh water in Europe and America; large eels are usually smoked or pickled

voracious snakelike marine or freshwater fishes with smooth slimy usually scaleless skin and having a continuous vertical fin but no ventral fins

Origin

From Middle English el (“eel”), from Old English ǣl (“eel”), from Proto-West Germanic *āl (“eel”), from Proto-Germanic *ēlaz (“eel”), which is of unknown origin. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian iel (“eel”), Dutch aal (“eel”), German Low German Aal, Ool (“eel”), German Aal (“eel”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ål (“eel”), Faroese állur, álur (“eel”), Icelandic áll (“eel”).

Phrases

African eel
African longfin eel
African mottled eel
African spoon-nose eel
Asian swamp eel
bastard eel
conger eel
Congo eel

Related words

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Parts

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.