Definitions

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

  • noun Any of several fishes of the family Lepisosteidae of fresh and brackish waters of North and Central America and Cuba, having an elongated body and long narrow jaws with sharp teeth.
  • noun A needlefish.
  • transitive verb To cause or compel.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Mud; ooze; dirt; slime.
  • noun Vegetable slime found adhering to ships' bottoms.
  • To cause; make; force; compel.
  • noun A spear: an element in certain proper names of Anglo-Saxon origin, as Edgar (AS. Eádgār, happy or fortunate spear), Ethelgar (AS. Aethelgār, noble spear), etc.
  • noun [Abbr. of garfish.] A garfish; one of several different fishes, belonging to different orders, which have a long sharp snout or beak, likened to a spear; a bill-fish: as, the common gar, Belone vulgaris; especially, in the United States, a ganoid fish of the family Lepidosteidœ; a garpike.

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

  • transitive verb Obs. or Scot. To cause; to make.
  • noun Any slender marine fish of the genera Belone and Tylosurus. See garfish.
  • noun The gar pike. See Alligator gar (under alligator), and Gar pike.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a large, elongated ganoid fish of the genus Lepidosteus, of several species, inhabiting the lakes and rivers of temperate and tropical America.

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

  • noun Any of several fish, of the family Lepisosteidae, that have long, narrow jaws; garfish

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

  • noun elongate European surface-dwelling predacious fishes with long toothed jaws; abundant in coastal waters
  • noun primitive predaceous North American fish covered with hard scales and having long jaws with needlelike teeth

Etymologies

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

[Short for garfish.]

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

[Middle English geren, from Old Norse gera, to make.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Short for garfish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English garren, gerren, from Old Norse gera, gerva (Swedish göra, Danish gjöre), from Proto-Germanic *garwijanan. Compare yare.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word gar.

Examples

  • Just because a gar is of no use to you doesn't mean it has no use.

    There is a local warm water discharge from a power plant that I fish at. 2009

  • Just because a gar is of no use to you doesn't mean it has no use.

    There is a local warm water discharge from a power plant that I fish at. 2009

  • Bin gar keine Russin, stamm 'aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

    Won`t Get Fooled Again Newmania 2007

  • Dismissed by some as a gamefish-devouring, muddy-water-dwelling trash species, the alligator gar is nonetheless heralded by a growing number of devotees as a premier sport fish — hard fighting, mean, and (in growing to 8 feet and 300 pounds) just about the biggest thing you're apt to encounter in inland waters.

    Fun Facts About Alligator Gar 2005

  • A park volunteer who was doing a gar census near where we were a gar is a skinny fish that becomes as big as fifty pounds, and is distinguished by an extremely long, thin nose handed me his binoculars and I got a good close-up of the alligator's face.

    Notes From Central Florida: Alligators and Angels Abound Tenured Radical 2009

  • A park volunteer who was doing a gar census near where we were a gar is a skinny fish that becomes as big as fifty pounds, and is distinguished by an extremely long, thin nose handed me his binoculars and I got a good close-up of the alligator's face.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Tenured Radical 2009

  • By the end of Richard's first month at the palace, the gar was a head taller than R'ichard, and significantly stronger.

    Stone of Tears Goodkind, Terry 1995

  • The gar was a big one even after he had been dressed.

    Half of Paradise James Lee Burke 1965

  • It's called gar-*zing*, because it has a special * zing* in its crust.

    KDBC.com 2010

  • It's called gar-*zing*, because it has a special * zing* in its crust.

    KDBC.com 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Rag in reverse.

    November 3, 2007