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Full Glossary for The Old Man and the Sea
Adolpho Luque pitcher for the Reds and Giants and a native of Havana, Cuba.
agua mala (Spanish) jellyfish; Portuguese man-of-war.
albacore a tuna with unusually long pectoral fins, important as a game and food fish in all warm seas.
barracuda any of a family of fierce, pikelike tropical fish: some species are edible.
big blue runner any of various edible jack fishes of warm seas, as a bluish species and a striped bluish species.
bonito any of a genus of marine game and food scombroid fishes.
brisa (Spanish) breeze.
calambre (Spanish) cramp (muscular).
Canary Islands group of islands in the Atlantic, off northwest Africa, forming a region of Spain.
carapace the horny, protective covering over all or part of the back of certain animals, as the upper shell of the turtle, armadillo, crab, etc.
Casablanca seaport in northwest Morocco, on the Atlantic.
Cienfuegos seaport on the south coast of Cuba.
dentuso (Spanish) big-toothed; (in Cuba) a particularly voracious and frightening species of shark with rows of large, sharp teeth; here, a descriptive term for the mako shark.
Dick Sisler famous baseball player and coach on numerous baseball teams, including the Cardinals, the Reds, and the Yankees.
dolphin a game fish with colors that brighten and change when the fish is taken out of the water.
dorado (Spanish) gilding or gilt (literally); here a descriptive term for the golden dolphin.
El Campeón (Spanish) The Champion.
flying fish a warm-sea fish with winglike pectoral fins that enable it to glide through the air.
gaff a large, strong hook on a pole, or a barbed spear, used in landing large fish.
galanos (Spanish) mottled ones (literally); here a descriptive term for the shovel-nosed sharks.
gelatinous like gelatin or jelly; having the consistency of gelatin or jelly; viscous.
Gran Ligas (Spanish) the two main leagues of professional baseball clubs in the U.S., the National League and the American League: also the Major Leagues.
green turtle, hawk-bill, loggerhead turtles.
Guanabacoa one of the oldest European settlements in Cuba; now part of the urban conglomerate of present-day Havana.
Joe DiMaggio famous baseball player who played for the Yankees and is widely regarded as the best all-around player in baseball history.
John J. McGraw manager of the Giants from 1902 to 1932.
juegos (Spanish) games.
la mar, el mar sea (Spanish feminine noun, Spanish masculine noun).
Leo Durocher manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939 to 1946 and 1948.
man-of-war bird a large, tropical bird with extremely long wings and tail and a hooked beak.
marlin any of several large, slender, deep-sea billfishes.
masthead the top part of a ship's mast.
Mike Gonzalez catcher for the Cardinals (1916-1918, 1924) and a native of Cuba.
Mosquito Coast region on the Caribbean coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.
oakum loose, stringy hemp fiber gotten by taking apart old ropes and treated with tar, used as a caulking material.
plankton the usually microscopic animal and plant life found floating or drifting in the ocean or in bodies of fresh water, used as food by nearly all aquatic animals.
Portuguese man-of-war a large, warm-sea jellyfish that floats on the water and has long, dangling tentacles with powerful stinging cells.
Que va (Spanish) No way.
rapier a slender, two-edged sword with a large, cupped hilt.
Rigel a supergiant, multiple star, usually the brightest star in the constellation Orion.
Sargasso weed floating brown algae found in tropical seas and having a main stem with flattened outgrowths like leaves, and branches with berry-like air sacs.
scythe a tool with a long, single-edged blade set at an angle on a long, curved handle, used in cutting long grass, grain, and so on, by hand.
shovel-nosed having a broad, flattened nose, head, or bill.
spring leaf curved plate that supports the vehicle above the suspension components and allows vertical suspension movement: also leaf spring; here the words are probaby presented in reverse order as they would be in Spanish.
tiburon (Spanish) shark.
Tigres (Spanish) reference to the Detroit Tigers.
un espuela de hueso a bone spur.
Virgin of Cobre reference to the statue of Our Lady of La Caridad de Cobre (Our Lady of Charity at Cobre), the most venerated in all of Cuba.
yellow jack an edible, gold-and-silver marine jack fish found near Florida and the West Indies.