🐟 A Pacific fish 🍣 Red fish meat

red salmon

3.0

A small Pacific salmon with red flesh whose adults die after spawning

noun
/rɛd ˈsælmən/

: salmón rojo

I ordered grilled red salmon for dinner because it's my favorite type of fish.

Examples

Let's find a good seafood restaurant and eat some red salmon.

Fiction book (1998)
I feel a powerful lust for red salmon...

Fiction book (1998)
The chef prepared a delicious dish using red salmon and served it with asparagus.
During the fishing season, many locals catch red salmon in the nearby rivers.

Synonyms

sockeye

vsred salmon

2 7.5

A Pacific salmon with red flesh that swims upstream to spawn and then dies

is the broader descriptive name rather than this shorter label

sockeye salmon

vsred salmon

1 3.4

A salmon from north Pacific rivers with red flesh whose adults die after spawning

is the general descriptive term used in everyday contexts

Oncorhynchus nerka

vsred salmon

Specialized

9.9

A small salmon with red flesh from northern Pacific rivers, often eaten and dying after laying eggs

is the common descriptive name used instead of the Latin name

blueback salmon

vsred salmon

Specialized

7.1

A small salmon from the northern Pacific with bright red flesh that dies after spawning

is the everyday descriptive name rather than this regional alternative

Surface Forms

red salmon singular

red salmons plural

Morphology

red + salmon

The meaning is directly compositional: 'red' simply describes the color/flesh quality of the noun 'salmon', so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to salmon with red flesh or coloration. This modifier + noun pattern is common across languages and follows standard English semantics, making the expression immediately understandable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Red salmon was named for the bright red color adult fish take when they swim into rivers to lay eggs; people saw rivers full of red fish and used that image as the name for the species, which often die after spawning.