salmon

Meanings

Noun

• One of several species of fish, typically of the Salmoninae subfamily, brownish above with silvery sides and delicate pinkish-orange flesh; they ascend rivers to spawn.
• A pale pinkish-orange colour, the colour of cooked salmon.
• The upper bricks in a kiln which receive the least heat.
• snout (tobacco; from salmon and trout)

Adjective

• Having a pale pinkish-orange colour.

Verb

• To ride a bicycle the wrong way down a one-way street.

Origin

• From Middle English samoun, samon, saumon, from Anglo-Norman saumon, from Old French saumon, from Latin salmo. Displaced native Middle English lax, from Old English leax. The unpronounced l was later inserted to make the word appear closer to its Latin root (compare words like debt, indict, receipt, island for the same spelling Latinizations).