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Wiktionary

eel

See also: Eel, e'el, eʼel, eel-, and -eel

English

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An eel

Etymology

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From Middle English el, from Old English ǣl (“eel”), from Proto-West Germanic *āl, 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”), Swedish, Danish and Norwegian ål (“eel”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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eel (plural eels)

  1. Any freshwater fish of the order Anguilliformes, which are elongated and resemble snakes.
    • 1995 December 26, William J. Broad, “Creatures of the Deep Find Their Way to the Table”, in The New York Times‎[1]:
      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.
  2. A European eel (Anguilla anguilla).
  3. Someone or something that is sneaky and/or hard to catch.
    That Dennis is a right eel, he always seems to slip away from the scene at the right time.
    • 2003, Catherine Anderson, Only by Your Touch:
      His expression when incredulous. "Why would you think that?" He was a slippery little eel.
    • 2004, F. Scott Spencer, Dancing Girls, Loose Ladies, and Women of the Cloth, page 26:
      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.
    • 2016, Jody Hedlund, Newton and Polly: A Novel of Amazing Grace, page 131:
      John scowled after the dog. "Never fear, my lady. I shall get the sneaky, slippery eel yet."

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Verb

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eel (third-person singular simple present eels, present participle eeling, simple past and past participle eeled)

  1. (intransitive) To fish for eels.
  2. (intransitive) To move with a sinuous motion like that of an eel.

References

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Anagrams

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Estonian

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Noun

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eel

  1. adessive singular of esi

Ingrian

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Spatial inflection of eel
↗︎○ allative eelle
○ adessive eel
○↘︎ ablative eelt

Pronunciation

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Postposition

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eel (+ genitive)

  1. before, in front of (of location)

Noun

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eel

  1. adessive singular of esi

References

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  • Ruben E. Nirvi (1971) Inkeroismurteiden Sanakirja, Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, page 38

Middle English

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Noun

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eel

  1. Alternative form of el

Mopan Maya

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Verb

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eel

  1. to know, to have knowledge of

References

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  • Hofling, Charles Andrew (2011). Mopan Maya–Spanish–English Dictionary, University of Utah Press.
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