Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various edible aquatic invertebrate animals having a shell, especially mollusks such as clams and oysters, and crustaceans such as lobsters, crabs, and shrimp.
  • noun An edible mollusk, in contrast to a crustacean.
  • noun The edible flesh of such animals.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An aquatic animal, not a fish, having a shell, and especially one which comes under popular notice as used for food or for ornament.
  • noun A crustaceous animal, or crustacean, as a crab, lobster, shrimp, or prawn.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any aquatic animal whose external covering consists of a shell, either testaceous, as in oysters, clams, and other mollusks, or crustaceous, as in lobsters and crabs.

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

  • noun An aquatic invertebrate, such as a mollusc or crustacean, that has a shell.

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

  • noun meat of edible aquatic invertebrate with a shell (especially a mollusk or crustacean)
  • noun invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

shell +‎ fish.

Support

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

Examples

Comments

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

  • The word to use if you'd like to call someone selfish as cutely as possible.

    July 11, 2008

  • I wish more people were allergic to selfish than to shellfish.

    July 11, 2008

  • I'm allergic to shellfish. :<

    July 11, 2008