Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A hermetically sealed plastic tube used for packaging products such as ground meat or caulk.
  • noun Any of various usually stout-bodied freshwater fishes of the family Cyprinidae, especially a Eurasian species, Leuciscus cephalus.
  • noun Any of various other fishes, such as several freshwater whitefishes of the genus Coregonus or various marine fishes of the family Kyphosidae.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who is short and plump; a chubby person.
  • noun A jolt-head or clownish fellow.
  • noun A name of various fishes

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A species to fresh-water fish of the Cyprinidæ or Carp family. The common European species is Leuciscus cephalus; the cheven. In America the name is applied to various fishes of the same family, of the genera Semotilus, Squalius, Ceratichthys, etc., and locally to several very different fishes, as the tautog, black bass, etc.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a species of mackerel (Scomber colias) in some years found in abundance on the Atlantic coast, but absent in others; -- called also bull mackerel, thimble-eye, and big-eye mackerel.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a fresh-water fish of the United States (Erimyzon sucetta); -- called also creekfish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One of various species of freshwater fish of the Cyprinidae or carp family, especially:
  • noun By extension, various vaguely related marine or freshwater fishes.
  • noun A chubby, plump person
  • noun slang A gay man.
  • noun A plastic or other flexible package of meat, usually ground meat or luncheon meat.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun European freshwater game fish with a thick spindle-shaped body

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps back-formation from chubby.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English chubbe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Recorded since c.1450, from Middle English chubbe ("the river fish"), of unknown origin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Back-formation from chubby.

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Examples

  • And there is in it a fish called chub, which they catch; but they do not eat it, for a certain sacred reason.

    Letters to Dead Authors 2006

  • "The chub is a soft fish, and tastes like boiled brown paper salted."

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862 Various

  • Black bass (locally called chub) and white perch are very abundant, and at the proper season rock and herring enter the Sound in considerable numbers.

    North Carolina and its Resources. North Carolina. Board of Agriculture. 1896

  • And there is in it a fish called chub, which they catch; but they do not eat it, for a certain sacred reason.

    Letters to Dead Authors Andrew Lang 1878

  • "The chub is a soft fish, and tastes like boiled brown paper salted."

    Excursions Henry David Thoreau 1839

  • Davis guessed that the chub was some sort of groundhog - while a good guess, the chub is a fish that is now usually found further downstream in the Colorado River, although they once might have lived as far up as Glenwood Canyon.

    Vail Daily - Top Stories 2009

  • The white fish -- a kind of chub -- was caught in the Yukon by the Yapik Eskimos and smoked at Acme Smoked Fish Corp, an old-fashioned, family-run business in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

    Lorna Sass: The Hidden Cost of Being 100% Locavore 2009

  • The white fish -- a kind of chub -- was caught in the Yukon by the Yapik Eskimos and smoked at Acme Smoked Fish Corp, an old-fashioned, family-run business in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

    Lorna Sass: The Hidden Cost of Being 100% Locavore 2009

  • And, now, he sometimes brought home a fish or two from the deeper water down in the pasture lot; and no success in after life would ever bring to the man the same thrill of delight that was felt by the boy when he landed a tiny "chub" or "shiner."

    Their Yesterdays Harold Bell Wright 1908

  • Among others, I was much pleased to find a cat-fish, taken in the lake by one of the island fishermen, and also a kind of chub, not found in Switzerland, and called by the fishermen here “Our Lady's Fish,” because it occurs only on the shore of an island where there is a convent, the nuns of which esteem it a great delicacy.

    Louis Agassiz His Life and Correspondence Agassiz, Louis 1885

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