🐟 A small pike 🍽️ Fish meat

pickerel

1 9.9

A small thin freshwater fish similar to a pike found in North America

noun
/ˈpɪkərəl/

: pícaro

During the fishing tournament, the biggest prize was awarded for catching the largest pickerel from the lake.
chain pickerel
pike and pickerel
pickerel rush

So Pike is prior to pickerel, armour Pike, northern Pike and muscalunge, right?

Examples

So Pike is prior to pickerel, armour Pike, northern Pike and muscalunge, right?

Gregory B. Sadler - That Philosophy Guy
Esocids include pike, pickerel, and muskellunge hybrids.

Academic text (2009)
- You have any pickerel?

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002)
I'd never seen a pickerel before.

Fiction book (1996)
Anglers often use lures to attract pickerel while fishing in weedy areas of the river.
In the Northeast, the pickerel is a popular target for sport fishing due to its aggressive feeding behavior.

Compounds

blue pickerel

9.6

A fish like a walleye that lives in the Great Lakes and has bluish scales

chain pickerel

8.8

A fish that lives in fresh water with a long body and dark marks like a chain

barred pickerel

9.4

A small lively fish with dark stripes found on the Atlantic coast

redfin pickerel

9.9

A small lively fish with red fins that lives in coastal streams

pickerel frog

9.3

A small brown frog with dark square spots that lives near ponds and in grassy areas

pickerel weed

9.9

A water plant with spikes of blue flowers that grows in shallow ponds and streams

Surface Forms

pickerel singular

pickerels plural

Morphology

pickerel = pike (semi-transparent) = pike + erel

Form clearly indicates 'pike' with a diminutive suffix '-erel' meaning 'small pike', but the suffix is archaic and not productive in modern English, so the derivation may not be fully obvious to all learners.

Etymology

Pickerel comes from the common fish name pike plus a small ending -erel, so it literally means 'little pike', which fits because a pickerel is a small, slender pike.