DORSAL FIN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Dorsal fin

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/dˈɔrsəl fɪn/ Listen

Dorsal fin

noun

Unpaired median fin on the backs of fishes and some other aquatic vertebrates that help to maintain balance.

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Etymology of 'Dorsal fin'

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"Dorsal fin" Quotes from Famous Books

... pumped and reeled him closer. Reluctantly he came, not yet broken in spirit, though his strength had sped. He rolled at times with a shade of the old vigor, with a pathetic manifestation of the temper that became a hero. I could see the long, slender tip of his dorsal fin, then his broad tail and finally the gleam of his silver side. Closer he came and slowly circled around the boat, eying me with great, accusing eyes. I measured him with a fisherman's glance. What a great fish! Seven feet, I calculated, ...

— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... here and there a grayling." Within an hour I get fifteen graylings to my own rod. Collectively they weigh just a little over thirty pounds. Swimming against the current, they take the fly eagerly; and one cannot hope to land a more gaudy or more gamy fish. Its big dorsal fin is rainbow-tinct, the tail an iridescent blue, and the scales pure mother-of-pearl. Mr. Keele has had "The Complete Angler" for two years with him in the fastnesses, and as he helps us prepare the catch ...

— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... French marsouin, the English beluga, a word of Russian origin, signifying white. The Beluga (Delphinapterus leucas), is a real whale with its most striking characteristic the white, or rather cream-coloured, skin described by some writers as very beautiful. Like the narwhal it has no dorsal fin. Though the smallest member of the whale family it is sometimes more than twenty feet long; but usually ranges from thirteen to sixteen feet. The young are bluish black in colour and may be seen swimming beside their mother who feeds them with a very thick milk. ...

— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

Words linked to "Dorsal fin" : fin