trout

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun flesh of any of several primarily freshwater game and food fishes
  2. noun any of various game and food fishes of cool fresh waters mostly smaller than typical salmons

Etymology

From Middle English troute, troughte, trught, trouȝt, trouhte, partly from Old English truht (“trout”), and partly from Old French truite; both from Late Latin tructa, perhaps from Ancient Greek τρώκτης (trṓktēs, “nibbler”), from τρώγω (trṓgō, “to gnaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, to turn”). The Internet verb sense originated on BBSes of the 1980s, probably from Monty Python's The Fish-Slapping Dance (1972), though that sketch involved a halibut.

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