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haaf fish

haaf fish noun: the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus).

Noun

haaf fish (countable and uncountable, plural haaf fish or haaf fishes)

  1. (Scotland, Shetland) The bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus).
    • But their most favourite vehicle is the skin of the larger seal or Haaf fish, for as this animal is amphibious they can land on some rock, and there cast off their sea-dress and assume their own shape, and amuse themselves as they will in the upper world.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 265
    • Whilst the rowers rested off the island of Uyea, our boat was visited by one of the large seals of the country (Phoca barbata), named by the natives a Haaf fish, because it usually appears at that remote distance from the main coast, which, in the language of the fishermen, is called the Haaf.1891, Samuel Hibbert, A Description of the Shetland Islands, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, page 166

Forms of haaf fish

pluralhaaf fish
pluralhaaf fishes

Questions about haaf fish

What does haaf fish mean?
Haaf fish means the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus).
What part of speech is haaf fish?
Haaf fish is a noun.
What is the plural of haaf fish?
The plural of haaf fish is haaf fish.

Words near haaf fish in the dictionary

  1. Haackes
  2. haad
  3. Haadhoo
  4. Haadhuaa
  5. haaf
  6. haaf fish
  7. haaf fishes
  8. haafu
  9. haafus
  10. Haag
  11. Haag's theorem

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: haaf fish (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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