ˈtrunk-fish
Any fish of the genus Ostracion or family Ostraciontidæ, inhabiting tropical seas, and having the body of angular cross-section and covered with bony hexagonal plates; a coffer-fish.
| 1804 Shaw Gen. Zool. V. 420 Triquetral Trunk-fish. 1835 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7) XII. 229/2 The horned trunk-fish, Ostracion cornutus, a native, like most of the genus, of the Indian and American seas. 1851 Gosse Nat. Hist., Fishes 288 The Trunk-fishes..have the body angular, four or three-sided, covered with angular plates of solid bone soldered together, and forming a sort of inflexible box, with openings for the mouth, the fins, the tail, and the gill-aperture. 1876 Goode Fishes Bermudas 23 The locomotion of the trunk⁓fishes is very peculiar. |