Squid
nounA soft-bodied marine animal with a long body, eight arms, and two longer tentacles.
How to spell squid
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce squid
What does squid mean?
- nounA soft-bodied marine animal with a long body, eight arms, and two longer tentacles.
Squid in a sentence
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The diver photographed a squid gliding past the reef.
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Fried squid is a popular dish at the seaside restaurant.
Where does squid come from?
Language of origin: Unknown
The origin of squid is genuinely murky, and lexicographers admit they cannot trace it with confidence. The word surfaces in English in the late 1500s, used by sailors and fishermen to name the soft-bodied, ten-armed sea creature, and it may be a dialect variant of 'squirt', describing the way the animal shoots out a jet of water or ink when alarmed. Before squid took hold, English speakers often used the older word 'cuttle' for similar creatures. Because no clear ancestor in Latin, French, or Old English has ever been pinned down, dictionaries usually mark it as origin unknown. The spelling stayed short and phonetic, which makes it one of the easier sea-creature names to write.
How the word is built
- squid (a single root word of uncertain origin; no prefix or suffix)
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