Definitions

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

  • noun A very large, edible clam (Panope abrupta) of the Pacific coast of northwest North America.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as goeduck.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A gigantic clam (Glycimeris generosa) of the Pacific coast of North America, highly valued as an article of food.

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

  • noun zoology A species of large saltwater clam, native to the North American Pacific Northwest, Washington to Alaska, known as Panopea abrupta or Panope generosa, in the family Hiatellidae.

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

  • noun a large edible clam found burrowing deeply in sandy mud along the Pacific coast of North America; weighs up to six pounds; has siphons that can extend to several feet and cannot be withdrawn into the shell

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Puget Salish gwídəq.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Lushootseed gʷídəq ("dig deep").

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Examples

  • The challenge: create surf and turf from an exotic list of ingredients, things like rattlesnake, black chicken, something frightening called geoduck, etc.

    Jane McGivney: Top Chef: The Cored Apple of Doom 2008

  • Another such word is geoduck, which is pronounced "gooey duck"; a less violently dissonant, but still unpredictable, spelling is distelfink, which according to Merriam-Webster's is pronounced DISH-tlfink it's from Pennsylvania Dutch dischdelfink 'goldfinch', although the AHD gives the normalized DIST-lfink.

    languagehat.com: ENGLISH SPELLING. 2004

  • I myself have never had a geoduck which is slightly embarassing in my field but I can admit it cheers -

    Think Progress » CBS Allows Focus On The Family Advocacy Ad During Super Bowl, But Bans Gay Dating Site Ad 2010

  • People have already beaten me to "geoduck" on the last picture, so I'm going to have to go with tube worm.

    When Wreckerators Take the Fall 2009

  • A Feb. 3 front-page article about a boom in geoduck exports to Asia incorrectly said that the Suquamish reservation is on the island.

    Corrections 2011

  • Because according to "Dr. Long," the geoduck was considered to be an aphrodisiac in Asia, and people were eating the mollusk into extinction.

    Joey Skaggs, The Ultimate Hoax Meister 2009

  • His Taylor Shellfish Farms raises a half-dozen varieties of oysters, plus clams, mussels and even giant geoduck clams two feet long that it sends to China and Japan.

    Oysterman Fought for Puget Sound, Reaped Its Bounty Stephen Miller 2011

  • It makes much more sense to use that seafood which is local – which for Seattle, includes geoduck.

    Menu For Hope 6 2009

  • In the late 1980s, prosecutors spent nearly two years building a case against a geoduck-clam smuggling operation that resulted, Mr. Welch says, in "the largest white-collar fraud case in Northwest history."

    When Criminals Clam Up Geoffrey Norman 2010

  • When the lawmen finally take him down, the evidence indicates that he has illegally harvested 200,000 pounds of geoduck clams.

    When Criminals Clam Up Geoffrey Norman 2010

Comments

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  • They were fourteen years old; geoducks were important. It was summer and little else really mattered.

    --David Guterson, 1994, Snow Falling on Cedars

    November 9, 2007

  • Apparently it is pronounced, 'gooeyduck'. This really lends an additional note of horror to this frightening clam-like object.

    April 13, 2009

  • The pronunciation makes this word interesting. To look at the word, one would think it meant "earth duck" or maybe "rock duck", but it's a clam pronounced, as madmouth noted, gooeyduck. The only case I know of where 'eo' is pronounced 'oo-ee'.

    May 27, 2010

  • Yikes, that is a scary looking critter. Almost nightmare fuel.

    Where is the scifi horror movie featuring geoducks? They'd barely even need to be mutated.

    May 27, 2010

  • A large featherless uni-ped. Flightless, they live underground.

    March 17, 2012