skipjack

skipjack - n., any of several fishes that habitually leap out of the water, such as bonito or bluefish,but esp. members of the genus Euthynnus related to tuna; a flat-bottomed one-masted sailboat with vertical sides used in the Chesapeake Bay.


The original, now obsolete sense was a conceited fop, dating from c.1550, coined from skip as in light-moving + the generic name Jack. The jumping fish sense dates from c.1700, the North American boat from 1887.

---L.