Meanings
xiphias1
- Synonym of swordfish.
Huge Ziffius, whom Mariners eschew / No lesse, then rockes, as travellers informe […]
1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC3 more examples
S. Malpighi having dissected the Head of a Xiphias or Sword Fish, which hath a very big Eye, observ'd that the middle of the Optick Nerve is nothing else, but a large Membrane, folded according to its length in many Doubles almost like a Fan, and invested by the Dura Mater.
1700, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 3, page 38Trebius Niger informs us that […] the xiphias, or, in other words, the sword-fish, has a sharp-pointed muzzle, with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom […]
1857, Bostock & Riley, “part 32.vi”, in Natural History, translation of original by PlinyIn the xiphias, you observe, the enormous elongation of the head is produced by the elongation of the jaws proper – that is to say, of the pre-maxilla and nasal bones.
23 May 1863, Prof. Huxley, “Structure and development of the vertebrate skeleton”, in The LancetSynonyms: swordfish
Xiphias2
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSynonym of swordfish.
proper nounSynonym of Dorado (“constellation of the southern sky”).
Origin
- Latinxiphiās“swordfish”
- translingualXiphias
- Englishxiphias
Borrowed from translingual Xiphias or Latin xiphiās (“swordfish”).
More words from translingual, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
xiphias. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xiphias
“xiphias.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xiphias. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “xiphias,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xiphias.
Source: xiphias on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.