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Glite Dictionary
🍽️ Crab meat 🦀 A large crab
king crab

king crab

3.2
A large spiny crab that lives in cold northern seas
  • noun
  • /kɪŋ kræb/
  • US
translation icon : cangrejo real
  • Well, these are steamed xiaolongbao, stuffed with shrimp, crawfish, king crab, seafood stock, corn and sausage and then tossed in a Cajun butter sauce.
  • blue king crab

Examples

  • We're in Anchorage, AK and we eat king crab instead of Turkey every Christmas.

  • During the winter months, many people in Alaska catch king crab to serve at holiday feasts.

  • It was in this kind of like dive bar and they had the best king crab legs ever.

  • Long the focus of an infamous and dangerous fishing derby, Bering Sea king crab came under catch share management in 2005.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Photograph: Courtesy of NOAA. PHOTO (COLOR): An Alaska fisher holds a king crab.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Last night, we enjoyed a delicious dinner of king crab legs with garlic butter.

  • The restaurant is known for its fresh king crab, harvested from the icy waters of the Bering Sea.

Synonyms

Lithodidae
vsking crab
  • Specialized
9.9

A group of large deep-sea crabs like king crabs that live in cold ocean waters

is a single large spiny edible crab found especially in northern Atlantic and Pacific
family Lithodidae
vsking crab
  • Specialized
9.5

A family of crabs that live deep in cold seas, including king crabs

is a single edible crab in cold northern seas rather than the broader family

Surface Forms

king crab singular
king crabs plural

Morphology

king + crab

This is a straightforward compound where 'king' functions as an attributive marker meaning large/superior and 'crab' names the animal/seafood, so the combined sense (a large or high-quality type of crab used for meat) is directly derivable from the parts. The pattern (using 'king' or similar honorifics to signal size or prominence) is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer the correct meaning.

Etymology

King crab is named for its very large size and strong legs. People called the big crab a king because it looked important, so the name means a very large crab species.