sea poker
- noun
- Specialized
:
pez poacher
- A sea poker is easily recognized by its bony plates and slender body.
Examples
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The diver spotted a sea poker hiding among the rocks on the ocean floor.
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Local fishermen sometimes catch sea pokers in their deep-water nets.
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The sea poker is a fascinating fish.
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Have you ever seen a sea poker?
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A sea poker can be found swimming in deep waters of the northern Pacific Ocean.
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Local fishermen often target sea pokers when fishing in deeper parts of the ocean.
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The slender shape of the sea poker makes it well-suited for life in the ocean's depths.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A small northern Pacific fish with a body covered in bony plates
A small, thin fish with bony plates on its body that lives in deep northern Pacific waters
Surface Forms
Morphology
sea + poker
The element 'sea' clearly signals a marine referent, which gives learners a strong cue that the compound names a sea creature; however 'poker' is either rare as a noun for a poking object/person or known as the card game, and its link to a small, slender, bony-plated fish is not predictable. Because the compound partially cues a marine animal but does not transparently convey the specific biological shape and armouring, a learner who only knows the constituents would likely only infer a general marine creature, not the precise fish sense.
Etymology
Sea poker may come from fishermen seeing the fish's long, pointy snout and hard bony plates that seem to 'poke', like a poker in the sea. So, the name came to mean this 'small, slender fish' with bony plates.