xiphias
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈzɪfɪəs/
Noun

xiphias

  1. A swordfish.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.xii:
      Huge Ziffius, whom Mariners eschew / No lesse, then rockes, as travellers informe […]
    • 1700, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol 3, p. 38:
      S. Malpighi having dissected the Head of a Xiphias or Sword Fish, which hath a very big Eye, observ'd that the middle of the Optick Nerve is nothing else, but a large Membrane, folded according to its length in many Doubles almost like a Fan, and invested by the Dura Mater.
    • 1857, Bostock & Riley, trans. Pliny, Natural History, 32.vi:
      Trebius Niger informs us that […] the xiphias, or, in other words, the sword-fish, has a sharp-pointed muzzle, with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom […]
    • 1863, Prof. Huxley, "Structure and development of the vertebrate skeleton", The Lancet, 23 May 1863:
      In the xiphias, you observe, the enormous elongation of the head is produced by the elongation of the jaws proper – that is to say, of the pre-maxilla and nasal bones.



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