Goldfish
nounA small orange carp commonly kept as a pet in bowls, tanks, and ponds.
How to spell goldfish
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce goldfish
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does goldfish mean?
- nounA small orange carp commonly kept as a pet in bowls, tanks, and ponds.
Goldfish in a sentence
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The children won a goldfish at the summer fair.
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Every morning she sprinkled a few flakes into the goldfish tank.
Where does goldfish come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a transparent English compound that simply joins 'gold', describing the bright metallic orange colour, with 'fish'. Both halves descend from Old English: 'gold' from 'gold', the precious yellow metal, and 'fish' from 'fisc', the general word for an aquatic, gill-bearing animal. The name was coined in the 1600s after these small carp, native to East Asia, were brought to Europe as ornamental pets prized for their shining hue. The fish are a domesticated form of the wild Prussian carp, selectively bred over centuries in China for their gleaming colour. Because the word is built from two everyday native parts, it has stayed spelled as a single solid word with no surprises.
How the word is built
- gold (the metal, by colour)
- fish (aquatic animal)
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