Word of the Day

: October 30, 2009

pescatarian

noun pess-kuh-TAIR-ee-un

What It Means

: one whose diet includes fish but no meat

pescatarian in Context

As she savored the bite of fish taco -- a food she had dearly missed since being on her vegetarian diet -- Gwyneth thought to herself, "I'll just have to consider myself a pescatarian instead."

Did You Know?

The word "vegetarian" sprouted up in 1839. "Fruitarian" ("a person who lives on fruit") ripened by 1893. In 1944, vegetarians who consume no animal or dairy products began calling themselves "vegans." Then, in 1993, those who eat fish but no other meat chose "pesce," the Italian word for "fish," to create the designation "pescatarian." In that same year, "meatatarian" was served up as a word for those whose diet largely includes meat; that word is rare, however, and is usually used in informal and humorous ways, making it the type of fare not included in our dictionaries. Another fairly recent dietary word that we will be chewing over when we next update our dictionary is "flexitarian," a person who follows a mostly vegetarian diet but occasionally eats meat or fish.