Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
bony fish

bony fish

1 3.7
A fish with a skeleton made mainly of bone, like a salmon or goldfish
  • noun
  • /ˈboʊni fɪʃ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pez óseo
  • Tunas are unique among bony fish in their ability to keep key parts of their bodies warm.
  • most bony fish

They don't have swim bladders like the Bony fishes do.

Examples

  • Sincranium bones were measured with a digital caliper with 0.01 mm precision. Total length (mm) and biomass (g) of bony fish were estimated from the total length of the otoliths.

    Academic text (2018)

  • So I thought ocean sunfish heaviest Bony fish, their otolis will be like pancakes, but I was wrong.

  • Unlike bony fishes, sharks do not have air bladders to give them buoyancy.

    Academic text (1994)

  • Most bony fish mature quickly and then produce thousands to millions of eggs annually.

  • Ocean sunfish, also called mola, are a genus of bony fish.

Synonyms

Osteichthyes
vsbony fish
  • Specialized
9.9

A group of fish with skeletons made mostly of bone

is the common everyday name for the same taxonomic group rather than scientific name

Surface Forms

bony fish singular
bony fishes plural

Morphology

bony + fish

The meaning is directly compositional: 'bony' means consisting of bone and 'fish' denotes the animal, so a B1 learner who knows both words will understand it as fish that have (or are characterized by) bones. While the full taxonomic label (Osteichthyes) is technical, the core idea is transparent and cross-linguistically expressible, making it immediately comprehensible from its parts.

Etymology

The term bony fish comes from the simple image of a fish with real bones inside: bony points to the bones and fish is the animal. So 'bony fish' means fish whose 'skeleton is made of bone', unlike sharks that have softer skeletons.