Word.ws English Dictionary

frostfish

frostfish noun: microgadus proximus.

Noun

frostfish (plural frostfishes or frostfish)

  1. Microgadus proximus
    Synonyms:
    Pacific tomcod
  2. Microgadus tomcod
    Synonyms:
    Atlantic tomcod
  3. Any member of the genus Benthodesmus cutlassfish
  4. (US, dialectal, obsolete) A smelt.
  5. (New Zealand) A scabbardfish.
    • Another species of the renowned “frost fish,” but unlike the ordinary frost fish, it is of much greater length in proportion to depth. It well deserves its proper cognomen of the scabbard fish, its silver skin adding to the resemblance.1886, Robert Caldwell Reid, Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand, Chapter 20

Synonyms of frostfish

Forms of frostfish

pluralfrostfishes
pluralfrostfish
alternative formfrost-fish
alternative formfrost fish

Origin of frostfish

From frost + fish. In the case of the tomcod, so called because it is abundant on the New England coast in autumn at about when frost comes.

Questions about frostfish

What does frostfish mean?
Frostfish means microgadus proximus.
What part of speech is frostfish?
Frostfish is a noun.
What is the plural of frostfish?
The plural of frostfish is frostfishes.

Words near frostfish in the dictionary

  1. frostening
  2. froster
  3. Frosterley
  4. frosters
  5. frostes
  6. frostfish
  7. frostfishes
  8. Frostian
  9. frostie
  10. frostier
  11. frostiest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frostfish (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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Cite this entry: “frostfish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/frostfish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.