sardine

Borrowed from French sardine (compare Spanish sardina, Italian sardina), Latin sardina; from Ancient Greek σαρδίνη (sardínē).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sɑːˈdiːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sɑɹˈdin/
• Rhymes: -iːn

sardine (plural sardines)

1. Any one of several species of small herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially the pilchard, or European sardine Sardina pilchardus (syn. Clupea pilchardus). The California sardine Sardinops sagax (syn. Clupea sagax) is similar. The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the Atlantic herring and of the menhaden.
2. (obsolete) carnelian
   • (Can we date this quote?) Rev 4:3 KJV

     And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

3. (figuratively) Someone packed or crammed into a small space.

• sardinelike
• sardiner

sardine (third-person singular simple present sardines, present participle sardining, simple past and past participle sardined)

1. to fish for sardines
   • 1997, Peter Landesman, The raven: a novel

     No one on Monhegan says they saw them, but a man sardining says he saw it headed there, or at least some boat with people atop it.

2. to pack or cram together tightly.
   • 1954, Tom McCahill, The modern sports car

     Six-foot- four McMichael (a past master at the art of sardining) not only crammed enough clothes for the trip into the mighty midget, but carried a full set of golf clubs and a banjo, as well!

   • 1986, The New Yorker - Volumen 62,

     Would it be unbearably elitist to suggest that they would be more enjoyable still if the director removed a row or two of chairs, instead of sardining as many listeners as possible into the intimate music room?

   • 2007, Julie Kavanagh, Nureyev: The Life

     There were already six members of the Nureyev family living in a room sixteen meters square, the children sardined on one mattress on the floor, their parents separated by only a curtain.

• Arnside, Draines, Draisen, derains, draines, indears, randies, reads in, sandier

From Latin sardina.

• IPA^(key): /saʁ.din/

• Audio

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sardine f (plural sardines)

1. sardine, pilchard
   • 1788, Jean-Jacques_Barthélemy, Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce

     Les sardines sont ailleurs l'aliment du peuple ; celles que nous prenons aux environs de Phalère mériteraient d'être servies à la table des dieux, surtout quand on ne les laisse qu'un instant dans l'huile.

     The pilchards taken in other countries are the food of the common people ; those we catch in the vicinity of Phalerum are worthly of the table of the gods, especially when left to steep only for a moment in boiling oil.

• “sardine” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• dineras, dîneras, draines, radines, ranidés, rendais

sardine f

1. plural of sardina

• snidare, sniderà

sardīne

1. vocative masculine singular of sardīnus