JELLYFISH • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Jellyfish

/dʒˈɛlifˌɪʃ/ Listen

Jellyfish

noun

Large siphonophore having a bladderlike float and stinging tentacles. Synonyms: man-of-war, Portuguese man-of-war.

Any of numerous usually marine and free-swimming coelenterates that constitute the sexually reproductive forms of hydrozoans and scyphozoans.

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Etymology of 'Jellyfish'

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"Jellyfish" Quotes from Famous Books

... yards off, in the direction in which it was moving, lay a long black snake asleep on the sand. When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again rose in the air, with the snake's black body clearly visible within it. "Our Will-o'-the-wisp is prettier by night than by day," said Bearwarden. "I suggest that we investigate this further." "How?" asked ...

— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... indictments—the horrific spider spinning his trap for the unthinking fly; the lovely Drosera (Sundew) using its crimson calyx for a smothering-pit in which to seal and devour the victim of its beauty; the rainbow-colored jellyfish that spreads its prismed tentacles like streamers of great beauty, only to sting and torture all that falls within their radiant folds. Man himself is busy digging the pit and fashioning the snare, but he will not believe it. His feet are in the trap ...

— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... of a fish likes dark trashy places. When you catch em you won't do it in front water; it likes back water and wants to stay in mud. That's the way with some people in church. You can't never get them to the front for nothin'. You has to fish deep for them. The next one is the jellyfish. It ain't got no backbone to face the right thing. That the trouble with our churches today. Too many jellyfishes in em.' Next, he say is the gold fish—good for nothin' but to look at. They is pretty. That the way ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... silent and very miserable. The lights of the big hanging kerosene lamps flickered and cast great shadows, showing the women all with heads very high and backs straight and stiff, the men in various attitudes of jellyfish, with heads hanging and feet screwed under their chairs in search of ...

— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

Words linked to "Jellyfish" : Physalia, genus Physalia, Cnidaria, man-of-war, Portuguese man-of-war, Aegina, Coelenterata, Chrysaora quinquecirrha, siphonophore, cnidarian, phylum Cnidaria, phylum Coelenterata, coelenterate