shellfish

Meanings

Plural: shellfish, shellfishes

Noun

• meat of edible aquatic invertebrate with a shell (especially a mollusk or crustacean)
• invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell
• A fisheries and colloquial term for an aquatic invertebrate having an inner or outer shell, such as a mollusc or crustacean, especially when edible.
• A culinary and nutritional term for several groups of non-piscine, non-tetrapod, aquatic animals that are used as a food source. The term often exclusively refers to edible aquatic crustaceans, bivalve mollusks and cephalopod mollusks; but sometimes echinoderms may be included as well.

Synonyms

mollusc, mollusk