starfish

plural starfishes · alternative archaic star-fish

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

   Near-synonym: Asteroidea

   Synonyms: sea star, asteroid, mul:Asteroidea

2. obsoleteAny many-armed or tentacled sea invertebrate, whether cnidarian, echinoderm, or cephalopod.

   1 more example

   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.

   1755, Erik Pontoppidan, translated by Isaac Kimbler, Explanation of the Plate of Uncommon Star Fish, Extracted from the Natural History of Norway

3. slangA woman (or, less commonly, a gay man) who reluctantly takes part in sexual intercourse, and lies on the back while spreading the limbs.

   Synonyms: cold fish, dead fish

4. slangvulgarlifestyleThe anus.

   Hands separated my ass cheeks while some pervert rimmed my puckered brown starfish.

   2021, Sophie Palmer, Hot Wife: Collection of Explicit Erotic Short Stories

   Synonyms: chocolate starfish

present singular third person starfishes · participle present starfishing · participle past starfished · past starfished · alternative archaic star-fish

1. intransitiveTo assume a splayed-out shape, like that of a starfish.

   The freckle on her eye starfished out and the sun began to move over her face like it does below the surface of water.

   2020, Becky Manawatu, Auē, page 95

   1 more example

   "Oh you damn bastard, why won't you let anybody love you," and then, before I could stop her, she threw herself between us and the glowing suitcase, starfishing in the blaze of light as he blew up.

   1981, Kit Reed, Magic Time, page 229

   1. intransitiveWhile floating on water
2. transitiveTo form into a splayed-out shape, like that of a starfish.

   The sea roared up her nostrils, tunnelled into her ears, and flung her forward, then back, the current pulling her fingers apart, starfishing her hands.

   2011, Polly Williams, It Happened One Summer