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eel

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eel¹

  • /iːl/

Sounds like 'e'll · Rhymes with -iːl

Where it comes from

From Middle English el (“eel”), from Old English ǣl (“eel”), from Proto-West Germanic *āl (“eel”), from Proto-Germanic *ēlaz (“eel”), which is of unknown origin.

Cognates

Cognate with West Frisian iel (“eel”), Dutch aal (“eel”), German Low German Aal, Ool (“eel”), German Aal (“eel”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ål (“eel”), Faroese állur, álur (“eel”), Icelandic áll (“eel”).

noun eels

  1. Any freshwater fish of the order Anguilliformes, which are elongated and resemble snakes. Off the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service is helping industry explore fisheries for deep shrimp, rattails, chimeras, orange roughy, smoothheads, slackjaw eels, blue hake, skates and dogfish, which the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group, in an effort to improve their m
  2. A European eel (Anguilla anguilla).
  3. An electric eel (any knifefish of the genus Electrophorus)
  4. A swamp eel (any fish in the family Synbranchidae).
  5. An earthworm eel, also called the spineless eel (any fish in the family Chaudhuriidae).
  6. A spiny eel (any fish in the family Mastacembelidae).
  7. A deep-sea spiny eel (any fish in the family Notacanthidae).
  8. A conger eel, also called the Congo eel, amphiuma, and Congo snake (any salamander of the genus Amphiuma).
  9. A two-legged eel, also called the mud eel and lesser siren, Siren intermedia.
  10. A leopard eel, also called the leopard siren and reticulated siren, Siren reticulata.
  11. A rubber eel, Typhlonectes natans.
  12. A vinegar eel, a roundworm of species Turbatrix aceti.
  13. Someone or something that is sneaky and/or hard to catch. That Dennis is a right eel, he always seems to slip away from the scene at the right time.

verb eels · eeling · eeled

  1. intransitive To fish for eels.
  2. intransitive To move with a sinuous motion like that of an eel.

Eel²

proper noun

  1. A township in Cass County, Indiana, United States, probably named after the Eel River.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: lamprey, moray, fish, toad, wriggler, pout, anguilla, conger, elver, snig, glass eel, swamp eel, garden eel, worm eel, snake eel, spiny eel

Translations

Every language

noun any fish of the order Anguilliformes

Españolanguila
한국어장어 jang'eo
日本語ウナギ unagi, 鰻 unagi
中文鰻魚 /鳗鱼 mányú, 鰻 /鳗 mán, 鱔魚 /鳝鱼 shànyú, 䱇 /𱇞 shàn
हिन्दीबाँब bāmb, बाम bām, सर्पमीन sarpamīn
Kiswahilimkunga
Portuguêsenguia
Françaisanguille
DeutschAal, Aalartige
Italianoanguilla
Ελληνικάχέλι chéli
Românăanghilă, țipar
Русскийу́горь úgorʹ
Tiếng Việtcá chình
العربيةأَنْقَلِيس ʔanqalīs, أَنْكَلِيس ʔankalīs
עבריתצְלוֹפָח tzlofáḥ

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MLA

"eel." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/eel. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

eel. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/eel

Chicago

"eel." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/eel.

BibTeX
@misc{eel_2026,
  title = {eel},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/eel},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}