anchovy
Valid in Scrabble
- Scrabble points
- 18
- Words With Friends
- 19
- Letters
- 7
See all 4 pronunciations Show less
Definition of anchovy
1 sense · 1 part of speech · etymology included
noun
-
Any small saltwater fish of the Engraulidae family, consisting of 160 species in sixteen genera, those of the genus Engraulis being widely sold as food.
“[T]he cooks were laying a refection before him of sack and anchovies and garlic sausage and gammons of bacon and - this was the important item - a great pudding dish out of which rose the noble dome of a crisp brown pie-crust.”
Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.
Etymology
From Spanish anchoa, from Genoese Ligurian anciôa or related Corsican anchjuva, anciua. The term's ultimate origin is unclear; some suggest it may have derived from an unattested Vulgar Latin term…
See full etymology Show less
From Spanish anchoa, from Genoese Ligurian anciôa or related Corsican anchjuva, anciua. The term's ultimate origin is unclear; some suggest it may have derived from an unattested Vulgar Latin term *apiuva, from Latin aphyē, apua, from Ancient Greek ἀφύη (aphúē) (which may be formed like Sanskrit अभ्व (ábhva-, “monster”)); others suggest it comes from Basque antxu, anchu (“dried fish”), from anchuva (“dry”), if that Basque term is not itself derived from Latin via some intermediary. None of these hypotheses is satisfactory because of the phonetic irregularities.
Words you can make from anchovy
49 playable · top: HAVOC (13 pts)
Best play havoc 13 points5-letter words
3 words4-letter words
12 words3-letter words
21 words2-letter words
12 wordsFind your best play with anchovy
See every word you can make from a set of letters that includes anchovy, or browse word lists you can mine for high-scoring plays.