salmon

noun (plural same or (especially of types) salmons)

• 1a large edible fish that is a popular game fish, much prized for its pink flesh. Salmon mature in the sea but migrate to freshwater streams to spawn.

  • Family Salmonidae (the salmon family): the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), which sometimes returns to spawn two or three times, and five species of Pacific salmon (genus Oncorhynchus), which always die after spawning. The salmon family also includes trout, char, whitefish, and their relatives
• the flesh of the salmon as food.

• 2any of a number of fishes that resemble the true salmons, in particular.

  • (Australian salmon) a large green and silver fish of Australasian inshore waters, popular as a game fish (Arripis trutta, family Arripidae). a prized food fish of the drum family (Sciaenidae), in particular the Cape salmon of the Indian Ocean (Atractoscion aequidens) and sea trouts of the western Atlantic (genus Cynoscion).

• 3a pale pinkish orange color.