dogfish

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"dogfish" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“dogfish” is uncommon English (frequency #65,061 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#65,061
frequency rank, English
3,470
“D” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of various small sharks

Corpus desk

Index EN-dogfish · dogfish · English

dogfish · rank #65,061 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #65,061
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,470
  • PHOTO-FINISH distended

Nearest frequency peer: distended (-2 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Long-tail ranks near “dogfish”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “dogfish” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for dogfish
PropertyValue
Headworddogfish
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters7
Frequency rank#65,061
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “dogfish” in English

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right).dogfishfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “distended” (#65,059), “Donn” (#65,063), “dissolute” (#65,058). Among 3,470 “D” headwords, “dogfish” is #65,061. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

dogfish is uncommon English at frequency #65,061 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 13 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for dogfish, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From dog + fish. Compare Greek σκυλόψαρο (skylópsaro, “dogfish”), Latin canicula (“dogfish”, literally “little dog”), Italian pescecane (“dogfish”), French chien de mer (literally “dog of the sea”), German Meerhund (literally “seadog”) and Hundfisch (“dogfi… The correct English form is dogfish, spelled D-O-G-F-I-S-H.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any of various small sharks
  2. 2
    Any of various small sharks
  3. 3
    Any of various small sharks
  4. 4
    Any of various small sharks
  5. 5
    Any of various small sharks
  6. 6
    Any of various small sharks
  7. 7
    Any of various small sharks
  8. 8
    Any of various small sharks
  9. 9
    Any of various small sharks
  10. 10
    Any of various small sharks
  11. 11
    Any of various small sharks
  12. 12
    Any of various small sharks
  13. 13
    The bowfin, Amia calva.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how dogfish appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Off the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service is helping industry explore fisheries for deep shrimp, rattails, chimeras, orange roughy, smoothheads, slackjaw eels, blue hake, skates and dogfish, which the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group, in an effort to improve their marketability, has renamed cape shark.
  2. Bowfins, sometimes called Dog-fish, live in sluggish waters throughout eastern N.A.

Etymology

From dog + fish. Compare Greek σκυλόψαρο (skylópsaro, “dogfish”), Latin canicula (“dogfish”, literally “little dog”), Italian pescecane (“dogfish”), French chien de mer (literally “dog of the sea”), German Meerhund (literally “seadog”) and Hundfisch (“dogfish”), and English seadog. For non-Indo-European cognates, see Maltese kelb il-baħar (literally “dog of the sea”) and Turkish köpek balığı (“shark”), likely calques from Indo-European languages.

Synonyms

seadog

This word in other languages

cazón(Español)Dornhai(Deutsch)cação(Português)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "dogfish"?
"dogfish" is spelled D-O-G-F-I-S-H.
What does "dogfish" mean?
As a noun, "dogfish" means: Any of various small sharks
What is the origin of the word "dogfish"?
From dog + fish. Compare Greek σκυλόψαρο (skylópsaro, “dogfish”), Latin canicula (“dogfish”, literally “little dog”), Italian pescecane (“dogfish”), French chien de mer (literally “dog of the sea”), German Meerhund (literally “seadog”) and Hundfis... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "dogfish", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Dorking#65,064doublet#65,066demesne#65,047damming#65,034

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list