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Glite Dictionary
bottom-feeding

bottom-feeding

1 7.0
Eating food from the bottom of a lake or river
  • adjective
: comedores de fondo
  • The bottom-feeding catfish sift through mud for food, making them essential for the ecosystem.
  • bottom-feeding fish

Examples

  • Many anglers prefer to catch bottom-feeding fish because they tend to be more plentiful in certain waters.

  • Bottom-feeding fishes that depend on infauna may then switch to other prey or migrate elsewhere (Feder and Pearson 1988).

    Academic text (2000)

  • An engineer—what was her name: Angie? walked past in the hallway, staring in at me as if I were some ugly, contemptible bottom-feeding fish in a public aquarium.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The lake is home to various bottom-feeding species, including carp and sturgeon.

Surface Forms

bottom-feeding positive

Morphology

bottom-feeding = bottom + feed (transparent) = bottom + feed + ing

Formed from 'bottom' + 'feed' with the participial suffix '-ing'; the meaning 'feeding at the bottom' is a direct compositional interpretation.

Etymology

Bottom-feeding comes from two simple words, bottom ('lowest part') and feeding ('eating'). It gives a clear picture of animals that eat on the floor of a lake or sea, which is why we call such fish 'bottom-feeding'.