Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A pelagic carangoid fish, Naucrates ductor, found in all warm seas, and occasionally on the Atlantic coast of the United States.
- noun plural A term extended to all the Carangidæ.
- noun A remora or sucking-fish of the family Echeneididæ, as Echeneis naucrates.
- noun A coregonid. Coregonus guadrilateralis, the Menomonee white-fish or shad-waiter of New England, some of the Great Lakes, and parts of British America to Alaska.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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As a day trader, he gambled on abstractions, riding, pilot-fish style, the tiny gyrations of companies whose products he had no hand in producing.
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Why can't you do your job on your own instead of following me about like pilot-fish hanging on for the pickings?
The 9th Directive Hall, Adam 1966
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As the Javelin began to settle complacently into the outermost reaches of the atmosphere of that abandoned, incredibly rich planet, the smooth, blown-steel, pilot-fish shapes of the blind little ships came raining down around her out of the blackness, spitting needles of white fire.
And all the Stars a Stage Blish, James 1960
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The pilot-fish is generally about a foot long, and in shape like a mullet.
A Sailor of King George Frederick Hoffman
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The sailors called it a pilot-fish, and they informed me that sharks are very seldom without one or two, and that they appear to direct them where to go; this last must be mere conjecture.
A Sailor of King George Frederick Hoffman
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Often small fish allied to the mackerel accompany them, as does also the pilot-fish of the shark.
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Alighting at the ferry, they started up Front street, Rose in lead, he being pilot-fish.
Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Fifteen Years in Solitude Austin Bidwell
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A monstrous shark drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish darting hither and thither, striped like little one-legged harlequins.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 Various
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Well they knew that one drop of blood would have been scented by the everlasting pilot-fish, the jackalls of the shark; and that their destruction was inevitable, if one only of these monsters should discover this rich repast, or be led to its food by the little rapid hunter of its prey.
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Still, you know Moggridge has taken care that the bait carefully conceals the snare within, and the pilot-fish are none the wiser.
The White Squall A Story of the Sargasso Sea J. [Illustrator] Schonberg
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