gudgeon
pronunciation
How to pronounce gudgeon in British English:
UK ['gʌdʒən]
How to pronounce gudgeon in American English:
US ['gʌdʒən]
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- Noun:
- small spiny-finned fish of coastal or brackish waters having a large head and elongated tapering body having the ventral fins modified as a sucker
- small slender European freshwater fish often used as bait by anglers
Word Origin
- gudgeon (n.1)
- European small freshwater fish, early 15c., from Middle French goujon, from Old French gojon (14c.), from Latin gobionem (nominative gobio), alteration of gobius, from Greek kobios, a kind of fish, a word of unknown origin. They are easily caught, hence the figurative sense of "a credulous person" (one who will "bite" at "bait"), from 1580s.
- gudgeon (n.2)
- "pivot on the end of a beam," c. 1400, from Old French gojon "pin, peg, spike" (13c.), perhaps somehow an altered sense of gudgeon (n.1).
Example
- 1. Readers will never swallow such a gudgeon .