remora

Definition

Any of various elongate fish from the family Echeneidae, the dorsal fin of which is in the form of a suction disc that can take a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin remora (“delay, hindrance, passive resistance”), from the belief that the fish would attach themselves to ships and slow them down, from re- (prefix meaning ‘back, backwards’) + mora (“delay”) (from Proto-Indo-European *mere (“to delay, hinder”), from *(s)mer- (“to fall into thinking, remember; to care for”)).

Example Sentences

• "The Remoræ (Echeneisidæ) form the last family of the soft-finned, subbrachian fishes. They are characterized at once by the top of their heads being flattened, and furnished with transverse series of cartilaginous plates, somewhat similar to the plates under the toes of the Gecko, by which these fish attach themselves to ships, rocks, and marine bodies."
• "The remora, lump-sucker, and others are provided with a muscular disk in the form of a sucker, by which they adhere to other fish or bodies moving through the water: [...]"
• "[...] I could not but notice, with some degree of curiosity, the gradual approaches of one of these remorae of society into the good graces of as genuine an English family as ever left the fat fields of Suffolk to pay for peeping at foreign novelty."