Pl. -fish, -fishes. [Cf. SEA-STAR 2.]
1. Any echinoderm of the genus Asterias or of the class Asteroidea, having a flattened body, normally consisting of lobes or rays (usually five), radiating from a central disc. These rays are sometimes very short or altogether absent, the body having the form of a pentagonal disc. The common star-fish is Asterias (Asteracanthion) rubens.
1538. Elyot, Dict., Stella, a sterre, also a sterrefyshe.
1611. Cotgr., Arbre marin..., the greatest of Starre-fishes.
1672. W. Hughes, Amer. Physit., 9. Of the Sea-Star-Fish, or by some called the Sea-Star.
1672. Josselyn, New-Eng. Rarities, 95. The Star Fish, having five points like a Star, the whole Fish no bigger than the Palm of a Mans hand.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., VIII. 174.
1836–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., II. 34/1. The star-fish has the power of slowly moving its rays.
1896. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., VI. 305. Star-fish are sluggish animals, rarely moving of themselves, and staying for days in the same position.
attrib. 1874. M. W. Taylor, in Trans. Cumb. & Westm. Antiq. & Archæol. Soc., I. 166. Imparting, on a bird’s-eye view, a kind of star-fish appearance to the structure. Ibid. (1885), Ibid., VIII. 331. The White Raise or Star-fish cairn.
2. transf. A name for certain species of Stapelia.
1840. Paxton, Bot. Dict., Star fish,… Stapelia Asterias.
1884. W. Miller, Plant-n., 130. Star-fish-flower, Stapelia Asterias and other species.
Hence Star-fishy a. (nonce-wd.).
1875. Ruskin, Fors Clav., lxi. A population mostly of … bagmen … nothing else but bags;—sloppy, star-fishy, seven-suckered stomachs of indiscriminate covetousness.
