What does cuttlefish mean?
Word: Cuttlefish
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Cuttlefish means a sea animal with a soft body, eight arms, two long feeding tentacles and a flat shell inside its body.
How do you spell cuttlefish?
Syllables: cut - tle - fish
Tricky part: There is a double t, as in butter and kitten.
Watch out for: cutlefish, cudlefish, cuttlfish
Memory tip: Two t's, like the two long tentacles a cuttlefish shoots out to grab food.
Cuttlefish in a sentence
Example 1: We watched a cuttlefish glide slowly past the glass at the aquarium in Sydney.
Example 2: The fisherman found a small cuttlefish tangled in his net.
Example 3: After a storm, the flat white bones of cuttlefish sometimes wash up on the beach.
Fun Fact
Despite its name, a cuttlefish is not a fish but a mollusc, like a snail. Its flat inner shell, the cuttlebone, is often given to pet birds to peck.
Practise the CREST Way
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
tifushcelt
a) catfish
b) shellfish
c) cuttlefish
d) jellyfish
Show answer
c) cuttlefish. Shellfish needs two l's, catfish an a, and jellyfish a j and a y, so cuttlefish is the only word these letters make.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the incorrectly spelt word:
a) cuttelfish
b) dolphin
c) octopus
d) jellyfish
Show answer
a) cuttelfish. The l comes before the e here, as in the end of little.
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
c_ttlef_sh
a) a, i
b) o, i
c) u, i
d) u, e
Show answer
c) u, i. The first vowel is the u of cut, and fish keeps its i.
Word Makeup
Choose the correctly spelt compound word:
a) lighthose
b) sandcastel
c) cuttlefish
d) seeweed
Show answer
c) cuttlefish. Seaweed, sandcastle and lighthouse have each gone wrong in one part; cuttlefish is spelt correctly.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which animal is a close relative of the cuttlefish?
a) the crab
b) the shark
c) the dolphin
d) the squid
Show answer
d) the squid
2. How does a cuttlefish blend in with the sand or rocks around it?
a) it puffs up its body with water
b) it curls up into a hard ball
c) it changes the colour of its skin
d) it grows a coat of sand
Show answer
c) it changes the colour of its skin
