crayfish
/ˈkreɪfɪʃ
/noun (plural same or crayfishes)
1 (also freshwater crayfish) A nocturnal freshwater crustacean that resembles a small lobster and inhabits streams and rivers.
- Several genera in the infraorder Astacidea, class Malacostraca, including Astacus of Europe and Cambarus of North America.
- As we clambered through the breakdown above the stream we saw several crayfish, which had apparently been washed in by the storm earlier in the week.
- It escaped, of course, like all imports do, and is now wiping out the much smaller native crayfish in the rushing streams of the Yorkshire Dales.
1.1 (also marine crayfish) another term for spiny lobster.Lobsters, crabs, prawns, bay bugs, freshwater and marine crayfish all belong to the phylum Arthropoda, the group which also contains insects....
- He pointed to recent archaeological investigations which indicated that Maori had overexploited resources such as seals, marine crayfish and birds of several varieties.
- The Palinuridae family includes the commercially exploited crustaceans of Australia that are known as rock lobsters, spiny crayfish and marine crayfish.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French crevice, of Germanic origin and related to German Krebs (see crab1). In the 16th century or earlier the second syllable was altered by association with fish1.
A crayfish is not a fish but a freshwater crustacean that looks like a small lobster. Its name came into medieval English from Old French crevice, and was probably related to crab (although not to crevice (Middle English), which is from Old French crever, ‘to burst or split’). The spelling was altered in the 16th century simply because people thought that it made more sense: it lives in water, so it must be a fish.