GC: n

S: WildlifeT – https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/marine/crustaceans/spiny-lobster (last access: 14 October 2024); MYFWC – https://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/crustaceans/lobster/facts/ (last access: 14 October 2024).

N: 1. – spiny (adj): “having thorns or spines, thorny,” 1580s, from spine + -y (2). Related: Spininess.

– lobster (n): large, long-tailed, stalk-eyed, 10-legged marine shellfish (Homarus vulgaris), early Middle English lopster, lopister, from Old English loppestre “lobster,” also “locust,” a corruption of Latin locusta, lucusta “marine shellfish, lobster;” also “locust, grasshopper,” which is of unknown origin. De Vaan writes that “The only word similar in form and meaning is lacerta ‘lizard; mackerel’, but there is no common preform in sight. … [T]hey could be cognate words in the language from which Latin borrowed these forms.”

OED says the Latin word originally meant “lobster or some similar crustacean, the application to the locust being suggested by the resemblance in shape.” Trilobite fossils in Worcestershire limestone quarries were known colloquially as locusts, which seems to have been the generic word for “unidentified arthropod” (as apple was for “foreign fruit”). Locusta in the sense “lobster” also appears in Old Cornish legast and French langouste (12c.), now “crawfish, crayfish,” but in Old French both “lobster” and “locust” (a 13c. psalter has God giving over the crops of Egypt to the langoustes).

2. lobster, any of numerous marine crustaceans (phylum Arthropoda, order Decapoda) constituting the families Homaridae (or Nephropsidae), true lobsters; Palinuridae, spiny lobsters, or sea crayfish; Scyllaridae, slipper, Spanish, or shovel lobsters; and Polychelidae, deep-sea lobsters. All are marine and benthic (bottom-dwelling), and most are nocturnal. Lobsters scavenge for dead animals but also eat live fish, small mollusks and other bottom-dwelling invertebrates, and seaweed. Some species, especially of true and spiny lobsters, are commercially important to humans as food.

Unlike true lobsters, spiny lobsters (Palinuridae), so called because of their very spiny bodies, do not have large claws. People eat the abdomen, which is marketed as lobster tail. The antennae are long. Most species live in tropical waters; Palinurus elephas, however, is found from Great Britain to the Mediterranean Sea. Two palinurid species are commercially important in the Americas: Palinurus interruptus, the California spiny lobster of the Pacific coast, and P. argus, the West Indian spiny lobster, from Bermuda to Brazil. P. interruptus attains lengths of about 40 cm (16 inches); P. argus about 45 cm (18 inches). Jasus lalandei, the commercially important South African rock lobster, occurs in waters around South Africa.

3. Crustaceans; Seafood and Freshwater Food (Food Industries); Commercial Fishing: spiny lobster, rock lobster, crawfish, pink crawfish, south coast spring lobster.

• Latin: Palinuridae.
• Any of a family (Palinuridae) of sea crustaceans, similar to the common lobster, but lacking the large pincers and having a spiny shell.
• spiny lobster and rock lobster: trade names recommended by the “Comité de normalisation de la terminologie des pêches commerciales” and by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

4. Crustaceans: American lobster (correct), lobster (correct).

• Latin: Homarus americanus.
• Order: Decapoda. Family: Nephropidae. Genus: Homarus.

• Latin: Panulirus sp.; Palinurus sp.;  Jasus sp.
• crawfish (current language), crayfish (current language).
• lobster (controversial usage).

S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=spiny+lobster (last access: 14 October 2024). 2. Enc Brit – https://www.britannica.com/animal/lobster#ref253695, https://www.britannica.com/animal/spiny-lobster (last access: 14 October 2024). 3 & 4. TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=spiny+lobster&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs, https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=lobster&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 14 October 2024). 5. GDT – https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/1198630/langouste (last access: 14 October 2024).

SYN: rock lobster

S: TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=spiny+lobster&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 14 October 2024); GDT – https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/1198630/langouste (last access: 14 October 2024).

CR: arthropod, edible crab, scampi, spider crab.