Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Sturgeon

Stur′geon (stûr′jŭn), n. [F. esturgeon, LL. sturio, sturgio, OHG. sturjo, G. stör; akin to AS. styria, styriga.] (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of large cartilaginous ganoid fishes belonging to Acipenser and allied genera of the family Acipenseridæ. They run up rivers to spawn, and are common on the coasts and in the large rivers and lakes of North America, Europe, and Asia. Caviare is prepared from the roe, and isinglass from the air bladder.

☞ The common North American species are Acipenser sturio of the Atlantic coast region, A. transmontanus of the Pacific coast, and A. rubicundus of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. In Europe, the common species is Acipenser sturio, and other well-known species are the sterlet and the huso. The sturgeons are included in the order Chondrostei. Their body is partially covered by five rows of large, carinated, bony plates, of which one row runs along the back. The tail is heterocercal. The toothless and protrusile mouth is beneath the head, and has four barbels in front.

Shovel-nosed sturgeon. (Zoöl.) See Shovelnose (d).

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.