Word.ws English Dictionary

yellow-back

yellow-back is the alternative form of yellowback.

Meaning of yellowback

Noun

yellowback (plural yellowbacks)

  1. (obsolete, rare) A species of sea catfish, Sciades parkeri, having yellow coloration on the upper part of its body.
  2. A cheap novel with a yellow cover; any cheaply reproduced novel, typically with sensational content.
    • She felt she would like a corner in the English room for the afternoon, a book and an occasional remark—Mr Barnes of New York—she would not be able to read her three yellow-backs in the German bedroom.1915, Dorothy Richardson, Pointed Roofs, Broadview, published 2014, page 173
  3. (US, historical) A monetary note redeemable in gold; a gold certificate.

Forms of yellow-back

pluralyellow-backs

Questions about yellow-back

What is yellow-back the alternative form of?
Yellow-back is the alternative form of yellowback.

Words near yellow-back in the dictionary

  1. yellow woodsorrels
  2. yellow yarrow
  3. yellow zone
  4. yellow-ammer
  5. yellow-ammers
  6. yellow-back
  7. yellow-backs
  8. yellow-bellied
  9. yellow-bellied fairy-fantail
  10. yellow-bellied fairy-fantails
  11. yellow-bellied fantail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yellow-back (page history and authors); yellowback (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: “yellow-back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yellow-back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.