noun
tropical freshwater fishes of Africa and South America and Central America
• Syn: ↑family Characidae
• Hypernyms: ↑fish family
• Member Holonyms: ↑Cypriniformes, ↑order Cypriniformes
• Member Meronyms:
↑characin, ↑characin fish, ↑characid, ↑Hemigrammus, ↑genus Hemigrammus, ↑Paracheirodon, ↑genus Paracheirodon, ↑Serrasalmus, ↑genus Serrasalmus
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\\kəˈrasəˌdē\ noun pluralUsage: capitalized
Etymology: New Latin, from Charac-, Charax, type genus (from Greek charak-, charax pointed stake, or a fish, probably the sea bream) +0 -idae
: a large family of freshwater fishes of Africa and tropical America typically having a deep scaly body and strong jaws but exhibiting many lines of specialization and with related forms commonly constituting a division of the Cyprinoidea — see caribe
Useful english dictionary. 2012.