Meaning & use
conger
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Meaning
nouncountablebiology
A large sea eel with a long, thick, scaleless body that lives in coastal waters and is caught for food.
Grammar: Countable: one conger, two congers; often written in full as conger eel.
Patterns
- conger eel
Divers spotted a huge conger hiding in the wreck.
The restaurant serves conger in a rich, garlicky stew.
Fishermen pulled a three-meter conger from the deep water.
Word forms
| plural | congers |
|---|
Common combinations
- conger eel
- A conger eel can grow longer than a grown man.
- catch a conger
- He hoped to catch a conger from the rocks at night.
- conger stew
- Conger stew is a traditional dish on parts of the coast.
- giant conger
- The aquarium keeps a giant conger in a deep tank.
Synonyms and how they differ
- eel
- Eel is the general word for the whole group, while conger names one large, strictly marine kind.
- moray
- Moray is a different marine eel with sharp teeth, usually found in warmer reefs, whereas the conger lives in cooler coastal water.
- conger eel
- This is the full name and means exactly the same as the shorter conger.
Word family
- eel noun
- any long, snake-like fish
- eely adjective
- slippery or hard to grasp, like an eel
Commonly confused: conger or conga? conger or congregate?
conger vs conga
A conga is a Latin dance or a drum, and has no connection to the fish.
conger vs congregate
Congregate is a verb meaning to gather together and is unrelated to the eel.
Practice
A conger is best described as which of these?
Choose one answer.
A conger, or conger eel, is a big marine eel. Conga is the dance, which is the tempting mix-up.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “conger”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.