anadromous

English

WOTD – 15 October 2010

From Ancient Greek ἀνάδρομος (anádromos, “fish entering a river from the sea”). By surface analysis, ana- +‎ -dromous.

anadromous (not comparable)

(of a migratory fish) That lives in the sea and breeds in fresh water.
Shads and most species of salmon are anadromous.
- 2014 April 20, Richard Conniff, “An evolutionary family drama”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:
  Alewives are anadromous fish: Born in freshwater, they spend their lives in the ocean, returning annually to their birthplaces to spawn.
- 2017, James C Scott, chapter 1, in Against the Grain, New Haven & London: Yale, →ISBN, page 53:
  Bird migration routes favor marshes and river valleys, as do, more obviously, the movement of anadromous salmon and, the mirror image, catadromous eels, to mention only two of the numerous migrating fish species.
- 2021 November 23, Robin Craig, “In dispute over groundwater, court tells Mississippi it’s equitable apportionment or nothing”, in SCOTUSblog:
  Emphasizing that it has applied equitable apportionment to not only rivers and streams but also to interstate river basins, to groundwater pumping that affects surface water flows, and to anadromous fish like Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, the court stated that equitable apportionment applies only when transboundary resources are at issue.
(botany) Of a fern: in which the first veins in a frond segment are produced towards the apex of the frond.

of migratory fish

of a fern