a small brightly coloured European freshwater cyprinid fish, Rhodeus sericeus: a popular aquarium fish
Word origin
C19: from German; see bitter + -ling1
bitterling in American English
(ˈbɪtərlɪŋ)
noun
a cyprinid fish, Rhodeus sericeus, found in central and eastern Europe, the female of which has a long, bright yellow or red ovipositor to deposit eggs in the mantle cavity of mussels
Word origin
[1875–80; ‹ G, equiv. to bitterbitter + -ling-ling1]This word is first recorded in the period 1875–80. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: massage, neoclassic, pressure point, slime mold, weekend-ling is a suffix of nouns, often pejorative, denoting one concerned with (hireling; underling), or diminutive (princeling; duckling)
Examples of 'bitterling' in a sentence
bitterling
The turnover characteristic to the bitterling population in the sampling area indicated a medium to low renewal rate.
Klaus Werner BATTES, Ionut STOICA 2005, 'Bitterling growth biology (Rhodeus amarus L.) in the Bistrita river', Analele Universitatii din Oradea: Fascicula Biologiehttp://www.bioresearch.ro/bioresearch/2005/03%20Battes.pdf. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
Despite these translocations, populations of bitterling are significantly structuredby genetic drift, possibly reinforced by its low dispersal ability.
Veronika Bartáková, Josef Bryja, Martin Reichard 2018, 'Fine-scale genetic structure of the European bitterling at the intersection of threemajor European watersheds', BMC Evolutionary Biologyhttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12862-018-1219-9. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)