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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

herring.

A type of small, oily fish of the genus Clupea, often used as food.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈhɛɹɪŋ/
  1. A type of small, oily fish of the genus Clupea, often used as food.

  2. Fish in the family Clupeidae.

  3. Those fish and any other fish similar to those in genus Clupea, many of those in the order Clupeiformes.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English hering, from Old English hǣring, from Proto-West Germanic *hāring (“herring”), further etymology unknown. Possibly derived from Proto-Germanic *hērą (“hair”) + -ing, due to the similarity of their fine bones to hair. Cognate with Scots hering, haring (“herring”), Saterland Frisian Hiering, Häiring (“herring”), West Frisian hjerring (“herring”), Dutch haring (“herring”), German Low German Hereng, Hering (“herring”), German Hering (“herring”), Bavarian Haring (“herring”). Late Latin haringus (whence French hareng, etc.) is borrowed from Germanic.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.