Link Centre Dictionary

flathead

flat·head

US/ˈflætˌhɛd/ uncommon informal us

noun

1.

food fish of the Indonesian region of the Pacific; resembles gurnards

2.

pallid bottom-dwelling flat-headed fish with large eyes and a duck-like snout

Origin

From flat + head, from the practice of compressing the skull in infancy by artificial means. However, the Salish tribe never practised this custom, the confusion arising from the fact that the early traders felt compelled to adopt the local Indian classification, which considered the prevailing compressed skull of the neighbouring tribes as pointed and the naturally shaped Salish skull by contrast as flat.

Phrases

  • bartail flathead
  • bartailed flathead
  • bigscale flathead
  • bigtooth flathead
  • blackbanded flathead
  • bluespotted flathead
  • Brazilian flathead
  • broadband flathead

Related words

Word family

Broader 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.