oyster
noun · adjective · verb
Simple meaning
Any of certain marine bivalve mollusks.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
oysterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɔɪstɚ
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 certain marine bivalve mollusks, especially those of the family Ostreidae (the true oysters), usually found adhering to rocks or other fixed objects in shallow water along the seacoasts, or in brackish water in the mouth of rivers.
A pale beige color tinted with grey or pink, like that of an oyster.
The delicate oyster-shaped morsel of dark meat contained in a small cavity of the bone on each side of the lower part of the back of a fowl.
figurative
Something at one's disposal.
Marine mollusks having a rough irregular shell; found on the sea bed mostly in coastal waters
ukslang
A shoplifter.
adjective
Of a pale beige colour tinted with grey or pink, like that of an oyster.
verb
Gather oysters, dig oysters
intransitive
To fish for oysters.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any of certain marine bivalve mollusks, especially those of the family Ostreidae (the true oysters), usually found adhering to rocks or other fixed objects in shallow water along the seacoasts, or in brackish water in the mouth of rivers.
Used this way, oyster is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use oyster
- “He enjoyed eating fresh oyster with a squeeze of lemon at the restaurant.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.