tunny

[ tuhn-ee ]

noun

, Chiefly British.

, plural (especially collectively) tun·ny, (especially referring to two or more kinds or species) tun·nies.

1. tuna ¹.

tunny

/ ˈtʌnɪ /

noun

1. another name for tuna 1

Word History and Origins

Origin of tunny¹

1520–30; by apocope < Medieval Latin tunnīna false tunny, noun use of feminine of tunnīnus like a tunny, equivalent to tunn ( us ) tunny (variant of Latin thynnus < Greek thýnnos ) + -īnus -ine ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of tunny¹

C16: from Old French thon , from Old Provençal ton , from Latin thunnus , from Greek

Example Sentences

When and why did we stop saying “tunny”?

From The Guardian

By the end of the decade, the tunny was rarely found in British waters - but is big-game fishing on the verge of making a comeback?

From BBC

No one had seen false albacore yet, the little tunny, but we knew they were coming, and striped bass too, alongside schools of chopper bluefish, yellow eyes gleaming.

From New York Times

Merchant ships plied to and fro on the blue oceans, and fishermen hauled in brimming nets of cod and tunny, bass and mullet; the forests ran with game, and no children went hungry.

From Literature

There were fine dried fruits from the Levant, tunny and other fish from the Mediterranean; and the wines, though inferior to those of France, were from foreign vineyards.

From Project Gutenberg