Shad
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any one of several species of food fishes that make up the genus Alosa in the family Clupeidae, to which the herrings also belong; river herring.
"Each river had its village and its iron bridge that the train crossed with a blast of its whistle, and the girls bathing in the icy water leaped like shad as it passed, unsettling travelers with their fleeting breasts."
- 2 herring-like food fishes that migrate from the sea to fresh water to spawn wordnet
- 3 Any bluefish of the species Pomatomus saltatrix. South-Africa
- 4 bony flesh of herring-like fish usually caught during their migration to fresh water for spawning; especially of Atlantic coast wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"More than 250 fish species use the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries for some portion of their life cycles, including American and hickory shad, river herring, striped bass, eel, weakfish, bluefish, flounder, oysters, and blue crabs. More than 300 migratory bird species can also be found in the watershed."
Etymology
From Middle English shadde, from Old English sceadd, possibly from Celtic (compare Scottish Gaelic sgadan (“herring”), Welsh ysgadan) or from Scandinavian/North Germanic (compare dialectal Norwegian skadd (“small whitefish”), Old Norse skata (“kind of fish”)), but the order of borrowing is unclear and the ultimate origin of these words is obscure.
* As an Urdu and Persian surname, from شاد (šâd, “glad, cheerful”). This surname is mostly found in Pakistan. * As an English surname, from the noun shad. * As a German surname, Americanized from Schade, itself related to Schaden (“damage”).
Related phrases
More for "shad"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.