poeciliid

[ pee-sil-ee-id ]

noun

1. any small New World fish of the family Poeciliidae, of fresh or brackish tropical and temperate waters, including the mosquitofish, guppies, and mollies.

adjective

1. belonging or pertaining to the family Poeciliidae.

Word History and Origins

Origin of poeciliid¹

< New Latin Poeciliidae, equivalent to Poecili ( a ) name of genus (< Greek poikilía striped, marked with various colors) + -idae -id ²

Example Sentences

After working as a research assistant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, among other jobs, she completed her doctorate in zoology in 1950 at New York University, with a focus on sperm competition in poeciliid fishes.

From Washington Post

The paper about poeciliid fishes, first published online in July by the journal Ethology1, received scant attention until ecologist David Harris at the University of California, Davis, tweeted his comment and included a screenshot of one of its pages:

From Nature