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Allin

jellyfish

nounattested in dialogue

  • //ˈd͡ʒɛliˌfɪʃ//

An almost transparent aquatic animal; any one of the acalephs, especially one of the larger species, having a jellylike appearance.

noun

  1. 1

    An almost transparent aquatic animal; any one of the acalephs, especially one of the larger species, having a jellylike appearance.

    A recent study focused on the enzymatic and cytotoxic functions of jellyfish metalloproteases and identified diverse proteolytic effects including gelatinolytic, caseinolytic, and fibrinolytic activities.

    There are asexual variants among all sorts of creatures, including jellyfish, dandelions, lichens and lizards.

  2. 2

    An almost transparent aquatic animal; any one of the acalephs, especially one of the larger species, having a jellylike appearance. Any of various species of cnidarians in the subphylum Medusozoa, including box jellyfish (class Cubozoa), true jellyfish (class Scyphozoa), stalked jellyfish (class Staurozoa), and certain hydrozoans.

  3. 3

    An almost transparent aquatic animal; any one of the acalephs, especially one of the larger species, having a jellylike appearance. Any of various species of cnidarians in the subphylum Medusozoa, including box jellyfish (class Cubozoa), true jellyfish (class Scyphozoa), stalked jellyfish (class Staurozoa), and certain hydrozoans. The medusa phase of these animals rather than a younger life stage.

  4. 4

    An almost transparent aquatic animal; any one of the acalephs, especially one of the larger species, having a jellylike appearance. A ctenophore, a member of the phylum Ctenophora (comb jellies).

  5. 5

    A sudoku technique involving possible cell locations for a digit, or pair, or triple, in uniquely four rows and four columns only. This allows for the elimination of candidates around the grid.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gel- Latin gelū Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin gelō ▲ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Latin -āta Early Medieval Latin gelāta Old French geleebor. Middle English gele English jelly Proto-Indo-European *péysks Proto-Germanic *fiskaz Proto-West Germanic *fisk Old English fisċ Middle English fisch English fish English jellyfish From jelly + fish. From being an aquatic creature (i.e. fish) that is gelatinous (“jelly”). Despite the name, jellyfish are not biologically classified as fish. The term appeared in the mid-19th century and displaced various older terms such as sea jelly (now much less common), blubber/sea blubber, nettle/sea nettle (both now referring to specific jellyfish species), and, in scientific literature, medusa.

Forms

plural
jellyfishes
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).