What does dollarfish mean?
The dollarfish is a small marine fish of the jack family (Carangidae) found along the Atlantic coast of the Americas, best known under the alternative names Atlantic moonfish or Vomer setapinnis. Its popular name comes from its striking appearance: the body is extremely compressed laterally and nearly circular, so that a mature fish resembles a gleaming silver coin. Dollarfish typically travel in schools near the surface in coastal waters and estuaries, where they feed on small crustaceans and fish larvae. Although too small to be of much commercial value as food, they are frequently taken as bycatch and are prized by anglers as live or cut bait for larger game fish such as striped bass and bluefish. Because "dollarfish," like many folk names for sea creatures, has been applied loosely to different flat, silvery fish in different regions, writers usually clarify the reference by citing the scientific name.
nounA small silvery carangid fish of the Atlantic coast of North America, especially Vomer setapinnis (the moonfish), named for its flat, round, coin-like body.
- The Atlantic moonfish (Vomer setapinnis), a flat, round-bodied silvery fish of the western Atlantic, valued chiefly as bait and bycatch.
"Anglers off the New Jersey shore often catch the shimmering dollarfish alongside butterfish and weakfish."
"The trawler came up with nets full of dollarfish, their flat bodies flashing like coins in the sun."
"He rigged a fresh dollarfish as bait and cast it out for striped bass."
As with many fish names, the plural is typically unchanged ("a school of dollarfish"), though "dollarfishes" is acceptable when referring to multiple individuals or species.
"The bay teems with dollarfish each summer."
It's literally a fish shaped like a silver dollar — so much so that fishermen named it after spare change.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dollarfish
The word is a straightforward English compound of "dollar," itself borrowed from the German Thaler, a coin first struck in the sixteenth century at Joachimsthal in Bohemia, combined with "fish." The name arose among North American fishermen who saw a resemblance between the fish's flat, round body and the silver coin. It remains an informal common name rather than a formal taxonomic designation.
How dollarfish is actually used
"Dollarfish" is an informal regional common name rather than a scientific term, used mainly along the eastern seaboard of North America; it may refer to more than one species depending on locality.
Easily confused with dollarfish
Butterfish are smooth, oily stromateid fish often caught in the same waters as dollarfish, which instead belong to the jack family and have a flatter, coin-like body.
Moonfish is an alternate common name for the dollarfish itself, but it can also refer to unrelated large oceanic fish such as opah, so context matters.