Definitions

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

  • noun A small brownish wrasse (Tautogolabrus adspersus) of northern North American Atlantic waters.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The blue-perch, Ctenolabrus adspersus.

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

  • noun A small edible fish of the Atlantic coast (Ctenolabrus adspersus); -- called also chogset, burgall, blue perch, and bait stealer.
  • noun A small shellfish; the limpet or patella.

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

  • noun A marine European fish (Crenilabrus melops); also, the related American conner.

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

  • noun common in north Atlantic coastal waters of the United States

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps alteration of conner, one who cons (guides a ship); see con.]

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Examples

  • Thirty-three taxonomic groups of fish were collected in entrainment sampling, with five taxa cunner, bay anchovy, tautog, windowpane, and searobin comprising more than 90 percent of the sample.

    Kyle Rabin: A View to a (Fish) Kill: A Firsthand Perspective on Fish-Killing Cooling Systems Kyle Rabin 2011

  • Thirty-three taxonomic groups of fish were collected in entrainment sampling, with five taxa cunner, bay anchovy, tautog, windowpane, and searobin comprising more than 90 percent of the sample.

    Kyle Rabin: A View to a (Fish) Kill: A Firsthand Perspective on Fish-Killing Cooling Systems Kyle Rabin 2011

  • My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand.

    Mrs. Todd 1910

  • I have watched the bird plunge into the waves of the ocean, on the coast of Maine, to bring out a cunner almost too large for her to carry, and I have seen her drop into the placid waters of an Adirondack lake for lake-trout in the same manner.

    On the Trail An Outdoor Book for Girls Lina Beard 1888

  • My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand.

    The Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett 1879

  • In the meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb had got out his cunner-line, and was quietly fishing at the end of the wharf, as if to give me the idea that he wasn't so very much impressed by my intimacy with so renowned a character as Sailor Ben.

    The Story of a Bad Boy Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1871

  • To sit for hours blinking in the sun, waiting for a cunner to come along and take his hook, was as exhaustive a kind of labor as he cared to engage in.

    A Rivermouth Romance Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1871

  • When the last cunner had vanished and nothing but olives and oyster crackers remained, the party settled on a sloping rock out of range of the fire, and reposed for a brief period to recover from the exertions of the feast, having, like the heroes in the old story, "eaten mightily for the space of an hour."

    A Garland for Girls Louisa May Alcott 1860

  • In addition to crabs, watermen found croaker and oyster toadfish, as well as rarities, such as stargazer and cunner.

    The Shad Plank 2010

  • The cunner, called the perch in Boston Harbour, is taken in spring and summer.

    Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1792

Comments

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  • It's a fish.

    January 1, 2012