Jellyfish

How to spell jellyfish

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce jellyfish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does jellyfish mean?

1. nounA soft, gelatinous, free-swimming marine animal with a translucent bell and trailing stinging tentacles.

Jellyfish in a sentence

• A translucent jellyfish drifted past the snorkellers in the warm shallows.

• The lifeguard warned swimmers that a jellyfish sting can cause a painful welt.

Where does jellyfish come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining 'jelly' and 'fish'. The first element comes through Old French 'gelee', meaning a frozen or congealed substance, which itself derives from the Latin verb 'gelare', 'to freeze'. The second element, 'fish', is a native Germanic word descending from Old English 'fisc'. The compound began appearing in the eighteenth century, when naturalists needed a plain English name for the soft, wobbling, almost transparent sea creatures that look like floating blobs of jelly. Strictly speaking the animal is not a fish at all, but the name stuck because its gelatinous body so obviously resembles a quivering mass of jelly. The spelling is forgiving: it joins two familiar words, with the only mild trap being the single 'l' and 'y' joint where 'jelly' meets 'fish'.

How the word is built

• jelly (soft gelatinous substance)
• fish (aquatic animal)