Flathead
//ˈflætˌhɛd// name, noun, slang
name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Any fish in the family Platycephalidae.
- 2 One of the Salish people of Washington state and British Columbia.
- 3 pallid bottom-dwelling flat-headed fish with large eyes and a duck-like snout wordnet
- 4 Ellipsis of flathead catfish US, abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, informal
- 5 food fish of the Indonesian region of the Pacific; resembles gurnards wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 A type of screw or bolt designed to fit in a countersink so that it sits flush with a surface.
- 7 Synonym of side valve.
Proper Noun
- 1 Their Salishan language.
Etymology
Etymology 1
From flat + head.
Etymology 2
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.
Related phrases
More for "flathead"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.