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# hagfish

noun (a hagfish, hagfish or hagfishes)

«hagfish» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. A hagfish is a long, eel-shaped sea fish with no jaws and no proper backbone that lives on the deep sea floor and eats dead animals. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#m1)
2. It is famous for making huge amounts of slime when attacked, which clogs the gills of predators. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#m2)

### In the lessons

In science lessons on adaptations and food chains, the hagfish is a scavenger (it eats dead animals) and a decomposer-helper on the sea floor; its slime defence is a strange adaptation. It is one of the oldest kinds of fish. Phrases: «hagfish slime», «slime eel».

### Examples

- A hagfish can make a bucket of slime in seconds. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#x1)
- The hagfish ate the dead whale on the sea floor. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#x2)
- Hagfish have no jaws. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#x3)
- Sharks spit out hagfish because of the slime. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#x4)
- Hagfish can tie themselves in knots to clean off slime. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#x5)
- Some people call the hagfish a slime eel. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/#x6)

### Note

Plural is usually «hagfish» (like «fish»). It is not a real eel, even though it looks like one.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «hagfish» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hagfish/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«hagfish» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/hagfish.html) on Mova free.