Word.ws English Dictionary

mermaids' purse

mermaids' purse is the alternative form of mermaid's purse.

Meaning of mermaid's purse

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

Forms of mermaids' purse

pluralmermaids' purses

Questions about mermaids' purse

What is mermaids' purse the alternative form of?
Mermaids' purse is the alternative form of mermaid's purse.

Words near mermaids' purse in the dictionary

  1. mermaiding
  2. mermaidish
  3. mermaidism
  4. mermaidlike
  5. mermaids
  6. mermaids' purse
  7. mermaids' purses
  8. mermaids' tears
  9. mermaidweed
  10. mermaidweeds
  11. mermaidy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mermaids' purse (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “mermaids' purse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mermaids%27_purse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.