eel
/iːl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.23 in modern English
3
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
2
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any freshwater fish of the order Anguilliformes, which are elongated and resemble snakes.
noun
A European eel (Anguilla anguilla).
Example Sentences
- "Off the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service is helping industry explore fisheries for deep shrimp, rattails, chimeras, orange roughy, smoothheads, slackjaw eels, blue hake, skates and dogfish, which the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group, in an effort to improve their marketability, has renamed cape shark."
- "That Dennis is a right eel, he always seems to slip away from the scene at the right time."
- "His expression when incredulous. "Why would you think that?" He was a slippery little eel."
- "Philosophers and literary critics from ancient times, along with social scientists, physicians, theologians, and biblical scholars more recently, have tried to get a tentative handle, if not a firm grasp, on this "slippery eel" of humor and laughter."
- "John scowled after the dog. "Never fear, my lady. I shall get the sneaky, slippery eel yet.""
Etymology
From Middle English el (“eel”), from Old English ǣl (“eel”), from Proto-West Germanic *āl (“eel”), from Proto-Germanic *ēlaz (“eel”), which is of unknown origin. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian iel (“eel”), Dutch aal (“eel”), German Low German Aal, Ool (“eel”), German Aal (“eel”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ål (“eel”), Faroese állur, álur (“eel”), Icelandic áll (“eel”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: el, ǣl, *āl, *ēlaz
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
African eel
African longfin eel
African mottled eel
African spoon-nose eel
Asian swamp eel
bastard eel
conger eel
Congo eel