eel

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Any of various long, snakelike, scaleless marine or freshwater fishes of the order Anguilliformes that lack pelvic fins and characteristically migrate from fresh water to salt water to spawn.
• noun Any of several similar fishes, such as the lamprey and electric eel.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun An elongated apodal fish of the family Anguillidæ and genus Anguilla, of which there are several species.
• noun Any fish of the order Apodes or Symbranchii, of which there are many families and several hundred species.
• noun Some fish resembling or likened to an eel; an anguilliform fish.
• noun Some small nematoid or threadworm, as of the family Anguillulidæ, found in vinegar, sour paste, etc. See vinegar-eel, and cut under Nematoidea.
• noun Hence— A rope's end; a flogging.
• noun Leptocephalus wilsoni of Australia.
• noun Congromuræna habenata of New Zealand.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Zoöl.) An elongated fish of many genera and species. The common eels of Europe and America belong to the genus Anguilla. The electrical eel is a species of Gymnotus. The so called vinegar eel is a minute nematode worm. See conger eel, electric eel, and gymnotus.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun Any fish of the order Anguilliformes which are elongated and resemble snakes. There are freshwater and marine species.
• noun The European eel, Anguilla anguilla.
• verb To fish for eels
• verb To move with a sinuous motion like that of an eel

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun voracious snakelike marine or freshwater fishes with smooth slimy usually scaleless skin and having a continuous vertical fin but no ventral fins
• noun the fatty flesh of eel; an elongate fish found in fresh water in Europe and America; large eels are usually smoked or pickled