Term pertaining to, similar to, or traits of Fish
What is the word for fish-like that is similar to these words:
- Mammalian (mammals)
- Reptilian (reptiles)
- Avian (birds)
- Amphibian (e.g. frogs)
- Crustacean (e.g. crabs)
- Saurian (e.g. dinosaurs)
- Fungal (mushrooms)
- Botanical, Floral (plants)
- Insectoid (insects, arachnids)
- Draconic (dragons!)
- Cetacean (e.g. whales)
I know these are not all at the same level of classification, but I can't find the smart-sounding word for fishy. I think it probably should have a suffix like:
- -oid
- -an/-ian
- -al
- -ant/-ent
- -ine
and a foreign root word like:
- piscis (latin)
- psári (greek)
- pesce (italian)
... piscian? piscent? psarian? psarine? pescatarian? pescal?
I need an adjective that is like:
The term _________ denotes any creature or object that shares a similar body or traits with common bony fish.
I have found the words:
- marine
- aquatic
...but they don't really help, since I want to distinguish fish from other marine life like starfish, jellyfish, cuttlefish, crayfish, etc. I've searched all over wikipedia's taxonomy section but can't find anything.
The term can include sharks if necessary, but I would prefer it without. (Bonus points for finding the term for sharks!)
I want to be able to use it like:
The residue contained ____ DNA.
But using:
The residue contained fishy DNA.
just sounds awfully stupid.
Thanks,
Edit:
I plugged the top 3 answers (fishlike, piscine, ichthyic) into Google's Ngram Viewer and it looks like piscine is the winner. I also checked scholar.google for ichthyic and piscine and got about 1,000 and 70,000 results respectively.
Thanks all!
Piscine adjective
of, relating to, or resembling a fish.
(Collins English Dictionary.)
Or fishlike:
Having some characteristics of a fish.
- Similar to that of a fish; as, fishlike scales, fishlike eyes
(Dictionary.com)
In the sentence about DNA you can use the term fish as a noun adjunct.
Perhaps you could use:
ichthyic
Of, relating to, or characteristic of fishes.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
Not sure how widely used or understood the term is, though.
See also Wikipedia's List of commonly used taxonomic affixes:
ichthyo-, -ichthys: Pronunciation: /ɪkθioʊs/, /ɪkθis/. Origin: Ancient Greek ίχθυς (ichthus). Meaning: fish. The suffix "-ichthys" is used for fish, while the prefix "ichthyo-", while used for fish, is also used for fish-like creatures.
Added:
If you want a term that relates specifically to bony fish, then I guess you'd want to change it to osteoichthyic?