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Starfish vs Starfishlike - What's the difference?

starfish | starfishlike |

As a noun starfish

is any of various asteroids or other echinoderms (not in fact fish) with usually five arms, many of which eat bivalves or corals by everting their stomach.

As an adjective starfishlike is

resembling or characteristic of a starfish.

starfish

Noun

(en-noun)
  • Any of various asteroids or other echinoderms (not in fact fish) with usually five arms, many of which eat bivalves or corals by everting their stomach.
  • (vulgar, slang, usually in translations of Japanese pornography) an anus. See also chocolate starfish.
  • (obsolete) Any many-armed or tentacled sea invertebrate, whether cnidarian, echinoderm, or cephalopod.
  • * 1755 , , trans. Isaac Kimbler, Explanation of the Plate of Uncommon Star Fish, Extracted from the Natural History of Norway
  • But the largest of the star-fish' kind is that sea monster called kruken, kraken or krabben. [...] As this enormous sea-animal in all probability may be reckoned of the polype, or of the ' star-fish , kind, it seems that the parts which are seen rising at its pleasure, and are called arms, are properly the tentacula, or feeding instruments, called horns as well as arms.

    Synonyms

    * (various echinoderms) sea star, asteroid

    See also

    * Starfish site English nouns with irregular plurals

    starfishlike

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Resembling or characteristic of a starfish.
  • * 1998 , Peter D'Amato, The savage garden: cultivating carnivorous plants
  • Temperate butterworts come into growth in spring, producing flat, often starfishlike rosettes of narrow, tapered leaves...