What does "menhaden" mean?

Any of several species of fish in the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium, used for fish meal, fish oil, fertilizer, and bait.

What is a synonym for "menhaden"?

Common synonyms include: brevoortia tyrannis, bunker, fish, mossbanker, mossbunker, mossyback.

Pronounced //mɛn.heɪ.d(ə)n//.

//mɛn.heɪ.d(ə)n// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Any of several species of fish in the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium, used for fish meal, fish oil, fertilizer, and bait.
"Divergence of the largescaled menhadens from the small-scaled menhadens resulted either from geographic isolation or different habitat preferences."
2
shad-like North American marine fishes used for fish meal and oil and fertilizer wordnet

"Divergence of the largescaled menhadens from the small-scaled menhadens resulted either from geographic isolation or different habitat preferences."

From Narragansett munnawhatteaug (“they fertilize”), influenced by poghaden.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.