a. and sb. Ichth. [ad. mod.L. Sparoidēs, f. sparus SPARUS.]

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  A.  adj. Of or belonging to, characteristic of, the Sparidæ or sea-bream family.

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1836.  J. Richardson, Fauna Bor. Amer., III. 71. No one Sparoid species is known to exist on both sides of the Atlantic.

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1842.  Penny Cycl., XXII. 310. The genus Pentapus is founded upon certain Sparoid fishes found in the Indian Seas.

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1862.  Couch, Brit. Fishes, I. 220. The Sparoid Family, or Sea Breams.

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  b.  Of scales: (see quots.).

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a. 1856.  Yarrell, Brit. Fishes (1859), II. 135. Sparoid scales are … thin, broader than long, with the centre of growth near their posterior border.

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1880.  Günther, Fishes, 46. Scales, the free surface of which is spiny, and which have no denticulation on the Margin, have been termed Sparoid scales.

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  B.  sb. A fish of this family.

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1842.  Brande, Dict. Sci., etc. 1136/2. Sparoids, Sparoides. The name of a tribe of Acanthopterygian fishes, of which the genus Sparus is the type.

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1851.  Mantell, Petrifactions, v. § 1. 412. Sparoids, or Breams.

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1884.  Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 394. Californian Sparoids.

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