noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A fisheries and colloquial term for an aquatic invertebrate having an inner or outer shell, such as a mollusc or crustacean, especially when edible. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell wordnet
3. 3
   A culinary and nutritional term for several groups of non-piscine, non-tetrapod, aquatic animals that are used as a food source. The term often exclusively refers to edible aquatic crustaceans, bivalve mollusks and cephalopod mollusks; but sometimes echinoderms may be included as well. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   meat of edible aquatic invertebrate with a shell (especially a mollusk or crustacean) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

blue pointclamcoquillagecrabcrawdadcrawfish

Example

More examples

"I do not eat meat, fish, shellfish, poultry or broth."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English schellefyssch, from Old English sċielfisċ. Equivalent to shell + fish.

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