Tintenfisch

German

Etymology

Compound of Tinte (“ink”) +‎ -n- +‎ Fisch (“fish”).

Attested from the 17th century, as dinten Fisch, equated with Meerspin "sea-spider" in Joseph du Chesne or Duchesne (Josephus Quercetanus), Johan Adolff Ringelstein Diaeteticon polyhistoricum (Straßburg, 1625), p. 218.

Glossed as synonymous with sepia (cuttlefish) or Sepia in Tilesius, Verzeichnis verschiedener Fische und Krebse des adriatischen Meerbusens (Triest, 1796), p. 45 and in Samuel Schilling, Ausführliche Naturgeschichte des Thier-, Pflanzen- und Mineralreichs vol. 3 (1839), p. 134. Later extended to other members of Coleoidea. Glossed as synonymous with Octopus in Globus vol. 61 (1892), p. 195.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈtɪntn̩ˌfɪʃ/, /ˈtɪntənˌfɪʃ/
Audio (file)

Noun

Tintenfisch m (strong, genitive Tintenfisches or Tintenfischs, plural Tintenfische)

any member of the Coleoidea subclass of cephalopods; more specifically of cuttlefish, but also of species of octopus, squid etc.

Usage notes

German-speakers without special knowledge of marine biology usually make no distinction between cuttlefish, octopus, and squid, calling all of them Tintenfisch and making this word a synonym of the less common Oktopus.

Declension

Declension of Tintenfisch [masculine, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Tintenfisch	die	Tintenfische
genitive	eines	des	Tintenfisches, Tintenfischs	der	Tintenfische
dative	einem	dem	Tintenfisch, Tintenfische¹	den	Tintenfischen
accusative	einen	den	Tintenfisch	die	Tintenfische

¹Now rare, see notes.

Derived terms

Tintenfischringe