Word.ws English Dictionary

mermaid's purse

mermaid's purse noun: the egg case of a skate, shark or ratfish.

mermaid's purse: the egg case of a skate, shark or ratfish
Image: Xtylee, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mermaid's purse (plural mermaid's purses)

  1. The egg case of a skate, shark or ratfish.
    • He reflected that it had probably come in over the outer reef to lay its eggs, or 'Mermaids' Purses' as the fishermen call them, because they are shaped like a pillow with a stiff black string at each corner, on the sheltered sandy bottom.1954, Ian Fleming, “Beau Desert”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 206
    Synonyms:
    devil's purse, sailor's purse, sea-purse, sea-pincushion

Synonyms of mermaid's purse

Forms of mermaid's purse

pluralmermaid's purses
alternative formmermaids' purse

Questions about mermaid's purse

What does mermaid's purse mean?
Mermaid's purse means the egg case of a skate, shark or ratfish.
What part of speech is mermaid's purse?
Mermaid's purse is a noun.
What is the plural of mermaid's purse?
The plural of mermaid's purse is mermaid's purses.

Words near mermaid's purse in the dictionary

  1. mermaid syndrome
  2. mermaid tresses
  3. mermaid's fishing line
  4. mermaid's glove
  5. mermaid's hair
  6. mermaid's purse
  7. mermaid's purses
  8. mermaid's toenail
  9. mermaid's toenails
  10. mermaid's tresses
  11. mermaidcore

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mermaid's purse (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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