ocean perch
- noun
- /ˈoʊʃən pɜːrtʃ/
- US
- The chef prepared a delicious dish featuring ocean perch with a lemon butter sauce.
- ocean perch and rockfish
- Pacific ocean perch
Examples
-
An ocean perch.
Fiction book (1996) -
At the seafood market, I bought fresh ocean perch that was caught that morning.
-
Many restaurants serve ocean perch because of its mild flavor and flaky texture.
Synonyms
A fish with red or reddish skin often found in the sea and eaten
A large sea fish of the North Atlantic often called Atlantic redfish
A large red fish from the North Atlantic often caught for food
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly compositional: 'ocean' designates the marine habitat and 'perch' names a fish, so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a type of perch that lives in the ocean. Specific species details (reddish, North Atlantic) are extra encyclopedic information, but the basic meaning 'a marine fish of the perch family' is transparently derivable.
Etymology
Ocean perch comes from a simple picture: the fish looks like a small perch but lives in the ocean, not rivers. That's why the name refers to a reddish food fish from cold northern seas, known for its firm white flesh.