Meaning & use
crappies
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“crappies” is a form of “crappie”.
Meanings
nouncountable
A small North American freshwater fish with a silvery, spotted body that is popular for eating and for sport fishing.
Grammar: Countable: one crappie, two crappies. The unchanged plural crappie is also common.
Patterns
- catch crappies
- a school of crappies
We caught five crappies near the fallen tree at the edge of the lake.
Crappies bite best in the early morning, so the boat left the dock before sunrise.
He fried the crappies in cornmeal and served them with lemon.
noununcountable
The flesh of this fish eaten as food.
Grammar: Uncountable when it means the food: crappie is on the menu, not 'a crappie is on the menu.'
Patterns
- eat crappie
- order crappie
The diner serves fried crappie with hush puppies on Fridays.
Crappie is mild and sweet, which is why so many people like it.
Word forms
| plural | crappies |
|---|---|
| plural | crappie |
Common combinations
- black crappie
- The black crappie has dark speckles all over its body.
- white crappie
- White crappie are more common in muddy rivers.
- go crappie fishing
- They go crappie fishing every spring at the reservoir.
- a mess of crappies
- Grandpa brought home a mess of crappies for supper.
Synonyms and how they differ
- panfish
- A general word for small fish that fit in a frying pan; crappies are one kind of panfish.
- sunfish
- A related family of small freshwater fish; crappies belong to it but are larger and have a different shape.
Word family
- crappie noun
- The singular form of the same fish.
Commonly confused: crappies or crappy?
crappies vs crappy
Crappy is informal and means 'bad or of poor quality'; crappies are fish, and the two words are pronounced differently.
Practice
Which sentence uses the word correctly?
Choose one answer.
Crappies is the plural of crappie, a fish, so catching and grilling them fits. The other options confuse it with the informal adjective crappy, which means 'bad.'
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “crappies”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.