Also 6–7 calamarie, 9 calamer, calamury. [f. L. calamāri-us pertaining to a calamus or pen; in Sp. calamar, F. calmar. From the pen-like internal shell (and perhaps also having reference to the ‘ink’ or black fluid, which these animals squirt out).]
The general name for Cephalopods or Cuttle-fish of the family Teuthidæ, more especially of the genus Loligo, cuttle-fishes having a long narrow body flanked by two triangular fins, and with the internal shell ‘a horny flexible pen’: e.g., the Common Calamary, Squid, or Pen-fish.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 75. Calamarie … is like the Cuttle, but that she is a little longer.
1635. Swan, Spec. M. (1670), 342. The Calamary is sometimes called the Sea-clerke, having as it were a knife and a pen. Some call him the Ink-horn-fish.
1758. Phil. Trans., L. 778. The body of the … Calamary is a sort of cartilaginous case … of a roundish oblong shape.
1848. Carpenter, Anim. Phys., 101. The body … furnished with a fin-like expansion behind, as in the calamary.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca, iii. 11. The calamary can even strike the surface of the sea with its tail.
