whitebait
noun, verb
whitebait is a noun meaning “The young of various species of fish, especially herrings, sprats or smelts” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-H-I-T-E-B-A-I-T, and it appears about once in every 17 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of whitebait is whitebaits.
What does whitebait mean?
noun
- 1
The young of various species of fish, especially herrings, sprats or smelts
- 2
Food prepared from such fish, often deep fried and served as a starter or snack.
verb
- 1
To fish for whitebait.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of whitebait
- whitebaits plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- whitebaiting participle, present
- whitebaited participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is whitebait?
Whitebait appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 125,655th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Whitebait in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense young of various species of fish:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | blanchaille, petite friture |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does whitebait come from?
From white + bait.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).