baitfish

noun

Etymology

From bait + fish.

  1. inherited from *peysk-✻ — “fish”
  2. inherited from *fiskaz✻ — “fish”
  3. inherited from *fisk✻
  4. inherited from fisċ — “fish”
  5. inherited from fisch
  6. compounded as baitfish — “bait + fish”

Definitions

  1. Small fish such as minnows that are used as bait to catch larger predatory fish.

    • He said increased baitfish numbers after an upwelling of nutrient-rich water three years ago had contributed to the increase in shark numbers.
  2. Fish that can be caught using bait.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for baitfish. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA