hammerhead shark
2
4.1
- noun
- /ˈhæmərhɛd ʃɑrk/
:
tiburón martillo
- Divers flock to the Maldives to encounter the majestic hammerhead shark during their underwater adventures.
- schools of hammerhead sharks
Examples
-
Off the coast of Sonora, Ricketts and Steinbeck visited a ship that used dredges to pull up every living thing from the sea floor, from sponges to hammerhead sharks.
Academic text (2007) -
While snorkeling in the clear waters, I was amazed to see a hammerhead shark glide gracefully by.
-
Without warning, a huge head, the head of a hammerhead shark, appears at the stern.
Fiction book (1990) -
The little ship may have been designed after a dragonfly, but the Enterprise looks as though it was designed after a hammerhead shark.
Blog text (31) -
But hammerhead sharks do not gather there to dine on smaller fish.
Academic text (1995) -
Schools of grey reef sharks have often been observed to be frightened by great hammerhead sharks and to pursue their assailant.
Blog text (25) -
Here, we report upon a great hammerhead shark preying on a grey reef shark at the World Heritage atoll of Fakarava (French Polynesia).
Blog text (25) -
But what draws me there year after year are the spectacular schools of scalloped hammerhead sharks—from fifty to two hundred of them, many more than seven feet long—that swim around the seamount all day.
Academic text (1995) -
From my first contact, I had noticed that hammerhead shark aggregations, unlike schools of small bony fishes, contain individuals of many sizes, haphazardly spaced and swimming in uncoordinated patterns.
Academic text (1995) -
The documentary featured stunning footage of a hammerhead shark hunting for prey in the warm tropical waters.
Synonyms
6
4.5
A medium-sized shark with a wide flat head and eyes at each end
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'hammerhead' denotes a hammer-shaped head and 'shark' denotes the animal, so 'hammerhead shark' literally describes a shark with a hammer-shaped head. This is a transparent, descriptive compound following common noun‑noun composition patterns (and mirrored in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily understand it.
Etymology
The name hammerhead shark comes from the shark’s wide, flat head that looks like a hammer. This strange shape spreads the shark’s eyes and nose apart, helping it see and smell better to 'find food', so the name links the look to how the shark lives.