Sponge vs Fish - What's the difference?
sponge | fish |
(countable) Any of various marine invertebrates, mostly of the phylum Porifera , that have a porous skeleton often of silica.
(countable) A piece of porous material used for washing (originally made from the invertebrates, now often made of plastic).
* {{quote-book, year=1913, author=
, title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad
, chapter=5 (uncountable) A porous material such as sponges consist of.
(informal) A heavy drinker.
(countable, uncountable) A type of light cake; sponge cake.
(countable, uncountable, British) A type of steamed pudding.
(slang) A person who takes advantage of the generosity of others (abstractly imagined to absorb or soak up the money or efforts of others like a sponge).
(countable) A form of contraception that is inserted vaginally; a .
Any spongelike substance.
# Dough before it is kneaded and formed into loaves, and after it is converted into a light, spongy mass by the agency of the yeast or leaven.
# Iron from the puddling furnace, in a pasty condition.
# Iron ore, in masses, reduced but not melted or worked.
A mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after a discharge. It consists of a cylinder of wood, covered with sheepskin with the wool on, or cloth with a heavy looped nap, and having a handle, or staff.
The extremity, or point, of a horseshoe, answering to the heel.
(slang) To take advantage of the kindness of others.
* L'Estrange
To get by imposition; to scrounge.
* , chapter=13
, title= To deprive (somebody) of something by imposition.
* South
To clean, soak up, or dab with a sponge.
To suck in, or imbibe, like a sponge.
To wipe out with a sponge, as letters or writing; to efface; to destroy all trace of.
To be converted, as dough, into a light, spongy mass by the agency of yeast or leaven.
(countable) A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.
Any animal that lives exclusively in water.
* 1774 , Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature , Volume IV:
(uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.
*
(countable) A period of time spent fishing.
(countable) An instance of seeking something.
(uncountable) A card game in which the object is to obtain cards in pairs or sets of four (depending on the variation), by asking the other players for cards of a particular rank.
(uncountable, derogatory, slang) A woman.
(countable, slang) An easy victim for swindling.
(countable, poker slang) A bad poker player.
(countable, nautical) A makeshift overlapping longitudinal brace, originally shaped roughly like a fish, used to temporarily repair or extend a spar or mast of a ship.
(nautical) A purchase used to fish the anchor.
(countable, nautical) A torpedo.
* 1977 , (w, Richard O'Kane), Clear the Bridge: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang , Ballantine Books (2003), page 344:
(zoology) A polyphyletic grouping of the following extant taxonomic groups:
# Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebra)
# Class Petromyzontida, the lampreys (no jaw)
# Within infraphylum Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates (also including Tetrapoda)
## Class Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays
## Superclass Osteichthyes, bony fish.
To try to catch fish, whether successfully or not.
To try to find something other than fish in (a body of water).
To attempt to find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects.
To attempt to obtain information by talking to people.
(cricket) Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.
To attempt to gain.
(nautical) To repair a spar or mast using a brace often called a fish (see NOUN above).
* 1970 , James Henderson, The Frigates, an account of the lesser warships of the wars from 1793 to 1815 , Wordsworth (1998), page 143:
As a noun sponge
is (countable) any of various marine invertebrates, mostly of the phylum porifera , that have a porous skeleton often of silica.As a verb sponge
is (slang) to take advantage of the kindness of others.As a proper noun fish is
.sponge
English
("sponge" on Wikipedia)Noun
citation, passage=She removed Stranleigh’s coat with a dexterity that aroused his imagination. The elder woman returned with dressings and a sponge , which she placed on a chair.}}
Synonyms
* (marine invertebrate) sea sponge, bath sponge, poriferan, porifer * (piece of porous material used for washing) bath sponge * (light cake) sponge cake * (type of steamed pudding) sponge pudding * (person) freeloader, spongerDerived terms
* breadcrumb sponge * demosponge * sea sponge * spongey * sponge bath * sponge cakeSee also
* foamVerb
(spong)- The fly is an intruder, and a common smell-feast, that sponges upon other people's trenchers.
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=“[…] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.}}
- (Jonathan Swift)
- How came such multitudes of our nation to be sponged of their plate and their money?
- (Hooker)
Synonyms
* blagfish
English
{{ picdic , image=Clupea harengus (Pieni).jpg , detail1= , detail2= }}Etymology 1
From (etyl), from (etyl) (m), from (etyl) (compare (etyl) (m), (etyl) (m).Noun
- Salmon is a fish .
- The Sun Mother created all the fishes of the world.
- The Sun Mother created all the fish of the world.
- We have many fish in our aquarium.
- The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster… as men have been willing to give them all the name of fishes , it is wisest for us to conform.
- The seafood pasta had lots of fish but not enough pasta.
- The fish at the lake didn't prove successful.
- Merely two fishes for information told the whole story.
- The second and third fish went to the middle of her long superstructure and under her forward deck.
Usage notes
The collective plural of fish'' is always ''fish'' in the UK; in the US, ''fishes'' is encountered as well. When referring to two or more kinds of fish, the plural is ''fishes .Synonyms
* (potential swindling victim) mark * (card game) Go Fish * (bad poker player) donkey, donkDerived terms
{{der3, big fish in a small pond , bony fish , cold fish , dragonfish , drink like a fish , fish and chips , fish bowl/fishbowl , fishbrain , fishcake , fisher , fisherman , fish-eating grin , fish finger , fishful , fishgig , fish hook/fishhook , fishkill , fish ladder, fishway , fishless , fishlike , fishling , fishly , fishmeal , fishmonger , fishmoth , fish out of water , fish paste/fishpaste , fish pond/fishpond , fishpound , fishpox , fishroom , fish sauce , fishskin , fishskin disease , fish slice , fish supper , fishtail , fish tank/fishtank , fish tape , fishwife , fishwoman , fishworm , fishy , , goatfish , goldfish , have other fish to fry , like shooting fish in a barrel , jellyfish , lumpfish , overfish , queer fish , sailfish , shellfish , silverfish , starfish , neither fish nor fowl , surgeonfish , swim like a fish , there's plenty more fish in the sea , tuna fish}}Hyponyms
* (aquatic cold-blooded vertabrae with gills) Cephalaspidomorphi, Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes * (food) seafoodSee also
*Etymology 2
From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) .Verb
(es)- She went to the river to fish for trout.
- They fished the surrounding lakes for the dead body.
- Why are you fishing through my things?
- He was fishing for the keys in his pocket.
- The detective visited the local pubs fishing around for more information.
- The actors loitered at the door, fishing for compliments.
- the crew were set to replacing and splicing the rigging and fishing the spars.
