Word.ws English Dictionary

flying squid

flying squid noun: any of various species of the family Ommastrephidae with the ability to glide in air above the water.

flying squid: any of various species of the family Ommastrephidae with the ability to glide in air above the water
Image: Dariozo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

flying squid (plural flying squid or flying squids)

  1. Any of various species of the family Ommastrephidae with the ability to glide in air above the water.
    • The Flying Fish or Cuttle Fish (Loligo Sp.)—Many different kinds of Loligo are called by sailors Flying Squid, from a habit they have of leaping from the water, and proceeding through the air to some distance in a horizontal direction, like flying fish.1840, The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Volume 22, page 194
    • Among the five different gillnet mesh sizes used by the Korean gillnet fishery, the 86 and 105 mm mesh were most commonly used for targeting on neon flying squid, Ommastrephes bartrami (Lesueur), in the North Pacific.1993, Bulletin - International North Pacific Fisheries Commission, Volume 53, Issues 1-3, International North Pacific Fisheries Commission, page 45

Forms of flying squid

pluralflying squid
pluralflying squids

Words formed from flying squid

  • Angola flying squid
  • Antarctic flying squid
  • European flying squid
  • glassy flying squid
  • Gould's flying squid
  • Hawaiian flying squid
  • Japanese flying squid
  • jumbo flying squid
  • lesser flying squid
  • little flying squid
  • luminous flying squid
  • neon flying squid
  • orangeback flying squid
  • purpleback flying squid
  • red flying squid
  • sevenstar flying squid
  • Wellington flying squid

Questions about flying squid

What does flying squid mean?
Flying squid means any of various species of the family Ommastrephidae with the ability to glide in air above the water.
What part of speech is flying squid?
Flying squid is a noun.
What is the plural of flying squid?
The plural of flying squid is flying squid.

Words near flying squid in the dictionary

  1. Flying Spaghetti Monsterism
  2. flying sport
  3. flying sports
  4. flying squad
  5. flying squads
  6. flying squid
  7. flying squids
  8. flying squirrel
  9. flying squirrels
  10. flying start
  11. flying starts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flying squid (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-flying squid.wav.

Cite this entry: “flying squid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flying_squid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.