butterfly fish
noun
Simple meaning
Any of several brightly colored fishes.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buhterflyfishSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbʌtɚflaɪˈfɪʃ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Any of several brightly colored fishes
Small usually brilliantly colored tropical marine fishes having narrow deep bodies with large broad fins; found worldwide
Pantodon buchholzi, a small brown fish of western African streams, often found in aquariums.
The butterfly cod (Pterois volitans).
Exocoetus volitans, a flying fish of the Atlantic.
The flying gurnard (Dactyloptena orientalis).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any of several brightly colored fishes
Used this way, butterfly fish is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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