Word.ws English Dictionary

gilt-head

gilt-head noun: the gilt-head bream.

Noun

gilt-head (plural gilt-heads)

  1. The gilt-head bream.
    • To give another instance: upon examining the fins of a fish to me unknown, I find them prickly; I then look for the situation of the ventral fins, I find them entirely wanting; this then must be a prickly-finned apodal fish. Of this kind there are but three; and, by comparing the fish with the...1813, Oliver Goldsmith, A history of the earth: and animated nature - Volume 6, page 258
    • The common gilt-head (C. aurata) is the one best known. It is exceedingly abundant in the Mediterranean, and not rare on the west coast of Spain, Portugal, and France.1838, Charles F. Partington, The British Cyclopaedia of the Arts, Sciences, History, Geography, Literature, Natural History, and Biography, page 701

Examples of gilt-head in a sentence

  • Of this kind there are but three; and, by comparing the fish with the description, I find it either of the trichurus kind, the sword-fish, or the gilt-head.1813, Oliver Goldsmith, A history of the earth: and animated nature - Volume 6, page 258:
  • An underwater hunter spots gilt-heads under twenty, twenty-five or even thirty feet of water.1955, Pierre de Latil, The Underwater Naturalist, page 169:

Forms of gilt-head

pluralgilt-heads
alternative formgilthead

Phrases with gilt-head

Questions about gilt-head

What does gilt-head mean?
Gilt-head means the gilt-head bream.
How do you use gilt-head in a sentence?
Of this kind there are but three; and, by comparing the fish with the description, I find it either of the trichurus kind, the sword-fish, or the gilt-head.
What part of speech is gilt-head?
Gilt-head is a noun.
What is the plural of gilt-head?
The plural of gilt-head is gilt-heads.

Words near gilt-head in the dictionary

  1. Gilstraps
  2. Gilsum
  3. gilt
  4. gilt silver
  5. gilt-edged
  6. gilt-head
  7. gilt-head bream
  8. gilt-head breams
  9. gilt-heads
  10. gilt-tail
  11. gilt-tails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gilt-head (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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