swordfish

What it means

1. countableuncountableA large marine fish with a long, pointed bill, Xiphias gladius.

   One reason, the department suggested, was that affluent New Yorkers were likely to eat expensive fish high in mercury, like swordfish and tuna.

   2008 January 30, Nick Fox, “Taking Worry Off the Plate”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 05 May 2021

   1 more example

   Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: sea emperor

2. countableuncountableA sudoku technique involving possible cell locations for a digit, or pair, or triple, in uniquely three rows and three columns only. This allows for the elimination of candidates around the grid.

In a sentence

Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

Where it comes from

1. Old English*sweordfisċ
2. Middle Englishswerdfysche
3. Englishswordfish

From Middle English swerdfysche, from Old English *sweordfisċ. Equivalent to sword + fish.