Opah
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any of various large, colourful, deep-bodied pelagic fish of the family Lamprididae.
"2003, Margaret M. Smith, Phillip C. Heemstra (editors), Smiths' Sea Fishes (Revision of 1977, James Leonard Brierley Smith, The Sea Fishes of Southern Africa), page 398, A member of the lower epipelagic community, the opah feeds on squid and fishes (including some benthic species) and is usually found well offshore."
- 2 large elliptical brightly colored deep-sea fish of Atlantic and Pacific and Mediterranean wordnet
Example
More examples"The opah is the only known fully warm-blooded fish that circulates heated blood throughout its body."
Etymology
From Igbo uba. Earliest attestation in English is the Royal Society’s 1752 Philosophical Transactions, 1749–50 (vol. 46, p. 519): “The black Prince, and his Cousin, from Anamaboe on the Coast of Guinea, and Mr. Creighton, formerly Governor of Capo Corso Castle, upon seeing this Fish immediately knew it, and said it was common on that Coast … The Natives call it Opah, and the English there call it the King-fish”
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.