DORSAL FIN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Dorsal fin

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/dˈɔrsəl fɪn/ Listen

Dorsal fin

noun

Unpaired median fin on the backs of fishes and some other aquatic vertebrates that help to maintain balance.

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Etymology of 'Dorsal fin'

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"Dorsal fin" Quotes from Famous Books

... In the spring of 1841, he marked a number of spawned grilse soon after the conclusion of the spawning period. Taking his "net and coble," he fished the river for the special purpose, and all the spawned grilse of 4 lb. weight were marked by putting a peculiarly twisted piece of wire through the dorsal fin. They were immediately thrown into the river, and of course disappeared, making their way downwards with other spawned fish towards the sea. "In the course of the next summer we again caught several of those fish which we had thus marked with wire as 4 lb. grilse, grown in the short period ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... Within an hour I get fifteen graylings to my own rod. Collectively they weigh just a little over thirty pounds. Swimming against the current, they take the fly eagerly; and one cannot hope to land a more gaudy or more gamy fish. Its big dorsal fin is rainbow-tinct, the tail an iridescent blue, and the scales pure mother-of-pearl. Mr. Keele has had "The Complete Angler" for two years with him in the fastnesses, and as he helps us prepare the catch ...

— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

Words linked to "Dorsal fin" : fin