devilfish
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: devilfishes
form: devilfish
form: devil-fish
form: devil fish
Etymology: Compound of devil + fish.
Senses: examples: text: The unattractive reptilian specimen in the man’s right hand is an octopus, or devilfish, which constitutes a favorite dish with the Asiatics of the islands.
ref: 1899, Jose de Olivares, Our Islands and Their People as Seen with Camera and Pencil, St. Louis, M.O.; New York, N.Y.: Thompson Pub. Co, page 470:
text: We have all heard of the octopus or devil-fish, with its long arms covered with powerful suckers, which is always waiting to seize the unsuspecting, choke and bite him, always grasping with another arm when the grip of one of them is loosened—suitable symbol of the trust.
ref: 1913, Victor Ernest Shelford, Animal Communities in Temperate America, Chicago, I.L.: University of Chicago Press, page 5:
text: The devilfish felt the menace of his attitude, and his two longest tentacles began to writhe in the air, as he measured our distance.
ref: 1922, Frederick O'Brien, Atolls of the Sun, Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, pages 164–165:
text: The devilfishes, or octopuses, vary from 2 inches to 28 feet in spread. They have a flexible bulbous body without a shell and eight long sucker-bearing tentacles.
ref: 1951, Tracy I. Storer, General Zoology, New York, N.Y.; Toronto, ON; London: McGraw Hill, page 435:
text: This bloody tinge drew the attention of a giant octopus, or "devilfish," who lived in the deep. Rising to the surface, "looking very white" (as a dead tentacle does, though a live octopus does not), it extended a single mammoth tentacle, encircled the fish camp, and swept it into the sea, gorging itself on the people and smashing their canoes.
ref: 1999, Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 46:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The octopus.
examples: text: It can easily be imagined that such creatures as these could drown a man, or upset a boat, and they have furnished material for many fabulous accounts of sea-serpents and devil-fishes.
ref: 1880, James Henry Emerton, Life on the Seashore, Or, Animals of Our Coasts and Bay, Salem, M.A.: George A. Bates, page 94:
text: At the bottom of the story of Skylla may lie a sailor's tale of the kraken or devil-fish, which sometimes grows to a gigantic size; Charybdis is obviously nothing but a dangerous whirlpool.
ref: 1901, H[ermann] Steuding, translated by Lionel D. Barnett, Greek and Roman mythology and Heroic Legend, London: Dent, page 53:
text: Devilfishes have been discovered in various seas, which weighed several hundred pounds, and whose length ranged from fifty to seventy or more feet.
ref: 1905, Charles Frederick Holder, Half Hours With the Lower Animals, New York, N.Y.; Cincinnati, O.H.; Chicago, I.L.: American Book Company, page 117:
text: "Doctor," inquired Charley, "would you call the kraken or devil-fish a legendary or real sea-serpent?"
ref: 1909, Edwin J. Houston, At school in the Cannibal Islands, Boston, M.A.; Chicago, I.L.; St. Louis, M.O.; Atlanta, G.A.; Dallas, T.X.: Griffith & Rowland Press, page 139:
text: The Horror had besides eight or ten long tentacles studded with suckers like those of the giant squid or devil-fish. These measured at least thirty feet—thick as a man's thigh near the creature's body, fining down at their extremities like the tip of an elephant's trunk.
ref: 1913, “The Deep-Sea Kraken”, in Alfred Holman, editor, The Argonaut, volume 72, page 302:
text: Old books--many of them dating back to the last two centuries--contain pictures and descriptions of huge devilfishes overwhelming and capsizing ships with their tentacles.
ref: 1923, William Crowder, Dwellers of The Sea and Shore, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page 198:
text: The trail led through a scrub pine forest where we tripped over bare roots of trees that curled over and around rocks and boulders like great devilfishes.
ref: 1939, Martha Black, Elizabeth Bailey Price, My Seventy Years, London [and others]: Thomas Nelson and Sons, page 108:
text: Today they are represented by only a few hundred species, but these include such fascinating animals as the octopus, the giant devilfish (or giant squid, which is the largest animal without a backbone), the paper nautilus, and the pearly nautilus.
ref: 1965, Robert T. Orr, The Animal Kingdom, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page 99:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The giant squid or kraken.
examples: text: The California gray whale, or devil-fish (Rhachianectes glaucus), is found only in the North Pacific, and is an object of pursuit by the shore stations established along that coast.
ref: 1887, A. Howard Clark, “The American-Whale Fishery”, in Science, volume 9, number 217, New York, N.Y.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, page 323:
text: The Sarah Warren returned with 1,100 bbls. of "devil fish" oil and 60 bbls. of sperm oil, and her tender, the Nevada, returned with 74, bbls. of whale oil.
ref: 1972, David A. Henderson, Men & Whales at Scammon's Lagoon, Los Angeles, C.A.: Dawson's Book Shop, →ISBN, page 270:
text: Returning, arrived at Honolulu on April 6, with 330 barrels of devil fish oil. Discharged cargo and left again for the Arctic region the latter part of July, 1867, returning the latter part of October, with 850 barrels of oil.
ref: 1907, Daniel Logan, A History of the Hawaiian Islands, New York, N.Y.; Chicago. I.L.: Lewis Publishing Company, page 231:
text: Although twice the size of the killers and correspondingly strong, when one of the orcas appears the devilfish become terrified and either wildly dash for shore or turn belly up at the surface, with fins outspread, paralyzed by fright.
ref: 1916, Roy Chapman Andrews, Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, page 197:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus.
examples: text: The same carnivorous instincts are likewise attributed to the devil-fish, or piranha so common in the Rio San Francisco, and the terror of bathers.
ref: 1860, “Paraguay”, in The New Monthly Magazine, volume 119, London: Chapman & Hall, page 461:
text: It is a kind of sturgeon, scaleless, spotted and marbled, flat-muzzled and whiskered, like the "cats" (Silurus), which drown the negro boys fishing in the Mississippi waters, and ugly as any "devil-fish".
ref: 1869, Richard Francis Burton, Explorations of the Highlands of the Brazil, volume 2, London: Tinsley Brothers, page 162:
text: The body of her husband was rescued from the sharks and devil-fishes, and brought ashore for interment, with every mark of respect.
ref: 1885, John T. Taylor, The Apostles of Fylde Methodism, London: T. Woolmer, page 113:
text: A court will decide sometime this year whether the piranha—South America’s deadly "devil fish" — can be a welcomed guest in California homes.
ref: 1966, “Dire Tropical Fish Gets Into State's Courts”, in Daily Independent Journal, volume 105, number 259, →ISSN, page 2:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The piranha.
examples: text: The American angler, or devil fish, which was placed In the Aquarium on Tuesday, was found dead in the tank yesterday morning. Mr. Coup, the manager, is making great effort to procure another specimen, as well as some strange fish from South America.
ref: 1876 November 16, “City and Suburban News”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2:
text: The four successful trawls yielded us examples of the Angler or Devil-fish, Lophius piscatorius; […]
ref: 1896, Arthur Watts, “Address to the Members of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club”, in Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-on-Tyne, volume 13, London: Williams and Norgate, published 1900, page 179:
text: Vertical section through the freshly enucleated frozen eye of a devil-fish (Lophius piscatorius).
ref: 1899, “A Review of the Medical Sciences”, in The Practitioner, volume 63, London: John Briggs, →ISSN, page 208:
text: Rock pools are a haven for crabs, crayfish, shrimp and devil fish.
ref: 2011, Insight Guides, Guernsey, London: APA Publications, →ISBN, page 81:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The anglerfish, Lophius piscatorius.
examples: text: In the rivers of southern Mexico, a lizard-like fish with armor for skin has taken over the habitat of the native fish like róbalo and mojarra. Locals call it the pez diablo, or devil fish, and long assumed it was poisonous.
ref: [2018 July 2, Tara Duggan, “Bay Area men’s plan to market invasive fish from Mexico hits snag in U.S.”, in San Francisco Chronicle, archived from the original on 05 Dec 2022:
text: But a U.S. law, aimed at protecting American catfish farmers from cheaper Asian imports, means there is effectively a ban on foreign catfish‚ including the suckermouth or devil fish, from entering the U.S.
ref: 2018 July 19, “Entrepreneurs hope to sell Mexico's 'devil fish' to Canadians as a sustainable snack”, in CBC News, archived from the original on 03 Feb 2023:
text: Devilfish is an invasive species of the Loricariidae family native to South America of the Amazon basin, but it has been introduced in several countries, as in Mexico. Devilfish has become an environmental problem in the country, at least in the last 20 years.
ref: 2022, Flores et. al, “Evaluation of a biocoagulant from devilfish invasive species for the removal of contaminants in ceramic industry wastewater”, in Scientific Reports, volume 12, London: Nature Portfolio, →DOI, →ISSN:
text: In another alarm of nature spiraling to hell in Florida, scientists suspect global warming has enabled devil fish to plague and ravage the St. Johns River.
ref: 2022 December 3, Kevin Spear, “Climate change heats devil fish that possess St. Johns River”, in Orlando Sentinel, archived from the original on 23 Dec 2022:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The suckermouth catfish, Hypostomus plecostomus (translating Spanish pez diablo).
examples: text: Elliott's "South Carolina Field Sports" is a very interesting and entirely trustworthy record of the sporting side of existence on the old Southern plantations, and not only commemorates how the planters hunted bear, deer, fox, and wildcat in the cane-brakes, but also gives a unique description of harpooning the devil-fish in the warm Southern waters.
ref: 1893, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, American Big-game Hunting: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club, New York, N.Y.: Forest and Stream Publishing Co, page 323:
text: The Tectospondyli contains those dog-fishes which have no anal fin, and the rays and devil-fishes.
ref: 1901, William Plane Pycraft, The Story Of Fish Life, London: George Newnes, page 173:
text: There the great ray, the devilfish, powerful, swift, mighty, tons in weight, spreads his huge black wings; […]
ref: 1905, A. S. J. Newberry, “The Song of the Spear”, in Forest and Stream, volume 44, number 15, New York, N.Y.: Forest and Stream Publishing Company, page 295:
text: Indeed the same time-worn phrase if considered horizontally would be less than the actual fact if applied to some of the devilfish or giant rays which we saw.
ref: 1926, William Beebe, The Arcturus Adventure, New York, N.Y.; London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 206:
text: Viennese marine biologist Han Haas lived for six months on an Arab fishing boat on the Red Sea in 120 degree heat. He bumped noses with sharks and deadly devil fish while he photographed the briny deep.
ref: 1951, “Woman Diverts Attention From Filming Undersea”, in The Atlanta Constitution, volume 84, number 148, page 12:
text: Thinking a whale had just sounded after hitting the water with its tail, I was about to turn away from it, when, like a great white owl, thirty feet across, and half as much from nose to tail, a gigantic eagle-ray or devil-fish, leaped silently out of the water, with its wings spread wide, planed for a short distance, and struck the water flat, with a similar detonation.
ref: 1951, Roy Campbell, Light on a Dark Horse: An Autobiography, Chicago, I.L.: Henry Regnery Company, published 1952, page 149:
text: The largest rays, like the largest sharks, are plankton strainers. Devilfishes or manta rays of the family Mobulidae are up to 6 meters in width.
ref: 2002, F. Harvey Pough, Christine M. Janis, John B. Heiser, Vertebrate Life, 6th edition, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, →ISBN, page 127:
text: These "devil fish" may have seemed terrifying then, but these days, the opportunity to swim with manta rays lures divers to Tobago, Trinidad's smaller, less-developed neighbor.
ref: 2004 October 31, Susan Enfield Esrey, “Far From the Bubblin' Crowd”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2016:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The manta ray; any ray in the genus Mobula.
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
The manta ray; any ray in the genus Mobula.
The devil ray, Mobula mobular.
examples: text: Devilfish are rather shy and difficult to approach. However, patience and perseverence^([sic]) usually pay off.
ref: 1989, Heinz-Gert de Couet, Andrew Green, The Manual of Underwater Photography, Viesbaden, Germany: Verlag Christa Hemmen, →ISBN, page 214:
text: Another closely related marine family, the Indo-Pacific Plesiopidae (roundheads), are well represented in Australian waters, with such familiar and brightly colored species as the hulafishes (Trachinops), devilfishes (Paraplesiops), and longfins (Plesiops).
ref: 1994, John R. Paxton, William N. Eschmeyer, Encyclopedia of Fishes, San Diego, C.A.: Academic Press, published 1995, →ISBN, page 185:
glosses: Any of several not closely related marine animals:
Certain fish in the genus Paraplesiops; see blue devilfish, Bleeker's devilfish.