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Crawfish   /krˈɔfˌɪʃ/   Listen
noun
Crayfish, Crawfish  n.  (pl. crayfishes or crayfish)  (Zool.)
1.
Any decapod crustacean of the family Astacidae (genera Cambarus and Cambarus), resembling the lobster, but smaller, and found in fresh waters. Crawfishes are esteemed very delicate food both in Europe and America. The North American species are numerous and mostly belong to the genus Cambarus. The blind crawfish of the Mammoth Cave is Cambarus pellucidus. The common European species is Astacus fluviatilis.
Synonyms: crawdad, crawdaddy.
2.
Tiny lobsterlike crustaceans usually boiled briefly.
Synonyms: crawdad, ecrevisse.
3.
A large edible marine crustacean having a spiny carapace but lacking the large pincers of true lobsters.
Synonyms: spiny lobster, langouste, rock lobster, crayfish, sea crawfish.



verb
crawfish  v. i.  To back out in a humilating manner; as, We'll have to crawfish out from meeting with him.
Synonyms: retreat, back out, back away, crawfish out, withdraw.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Crawfish" Quotes from Famous Books



... easy to cry that you're beaten and die, It's easy to crawfish and crawl, But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight, Why, that's the best game of them all. And though you come out of each grueling bout, All broken and beaten and scarred— Just have one more try. It's dead easy to die, It's the keeping ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... I discussed existence at a waterhole down the creek next afternoon, over a billy of crawfish which we had boiled and a piece of gritty damper, and decided to retire beyond the settled districts—some five hundred miles or so—to a place that Joe said he knew of, where there were lagoons and billabongs ten miles wide, alive with ducks and fish, and black cockatoos ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... "deserted village," assisted us in night-fishing with the lantern; and they brought from the adjoining reefs the most delicate of shell and scale fish. The best were the langoustes (Palinurus vulgaris), the clawless lobsters called crawfish (crayfish) in the United States, and the agosta or avagosta of the Adriatic: it was confounded by the Egyptian officers with "Abu Galambo,"[EN103] the crab (Cancer pelagicus). The echinidae of various species, large-spined ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... delay in the morning being determined to make a forced march tomorrow in order to reach if possible the open country. we killed a few Pheasants, and I killd a prarie woolf which together with the ballance of our horse beef and some crawfish which we obtained in the creek enabled us to make one more hearty meal, not knowing where the next was to be found. the Arborvita increases in quantity and size. I saw several sticks today large enough to form eligant perogues of at least 45 feet in length.- I find ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... shellfish (though in less plenty about Bahia than on other parts of the coast) namely lobsters, crawfish, shrimps, crabs, oysters of the common sort, conches, wilks, cockles, mussels, periwinkles, etc. Here are three sorts of sea-turtle, namely hawksbill, loggerhead, and green: but none of them are in any esteem, neither ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier


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