Definition of "cunner" []

• A small fish (Tautogolabrus adspersus) of North American Atlantic waters that is common along the shore of the eastern United States. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Thirty-three taxonomic groups of fish were collected in entrainment sampling, with five taxa cunner, bay anchovy, tautog, windowpane, and searobin comprising more than 90 percent of the sample."
• "My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand."
• "I have watched the bird plunge into the waves of the ocean, on the coast of Maine, to bring out a cunner almost too large for her to carry, and I have seen her drop into the placid waters of an Adirondack lake for lake-trout in the same manner."