remora

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin remora (“delay, hindrance, passive resistance”), from the belief that the fish would attach themselves to ships and slow them down, from re- (prefix meaning ‘back, backwards’) + mora (“delay”) (from Proto-Indo-European *mere (“to delay, hinder”), from *(s)mer- (“to fall into thinking, remember; to care for”)).

noun

1. Any of various elongate fish from the family Echeneidae, the dorsal fin of which is in the form of a suction disc that can take a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals.
   The Remoræ (Echeneisidæ) form the last family of the soft-finned, subbrachian fishes. They are characterized at once by the top of their heads being flattened, and furnished with transverse series of cartilaginous plates, somewhat similar to the plates under the toes of the Gecko, by which these fish attach themselves to ships, rocks, and marine bodies. 1832, “Room XI. General Collection of Fish and Corals.”, in Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum, 26th edition, London: Printed by G[eorge] Woodfall,[…], →OCLC, page 86
   The remora, lump-sucker, and others are provided with a muscular disk in the form of a sucker, by which they adhere to other fish or bodies moving through the water: … 1839, P. Evers, “On the Muscular System in the Vertebrata. [Pisces.]”, in The Student’s Compendium of Comparative Anatomy (Dunglison’s American Medical Library), Philadelphia, Pa.: Printed and published by A. Waldie,[…], →OCLC, page 42
   … I could not but notice, with some degree of curiosity, the gradual approaches of one of these remorae of society into the good graces of as genuine an English family as ever left the fat fields of Suffolk to pay for peeping at foreign novelty. 1866, Philip Abraham, “Forest Glinton. A Character, from Life.”, in Autumn Gatherings, being a Collection of Prose and Poetry. Sacred and Secular, London: Published by and for the author,[…], →OCLC, pages 99–100
   It was all genuine footage of various kinds of ray-fish: first a manta gliding just below the surface of a purple sea near the coast of Argentina. He glided there amongst the light beams that penetrated the water like daggers stabbing into it, while remorae skirted among his wing-fins. 2012, Christopher Mac Lairn, “Vulturnus”, in The Spirit of Vengeance, [Bloomngton, Ind.]: Xlibris, page 53
   The tenacity with which remoras attach to their hosts is best illustrated by the practice of sea turtle fishing by fishermen in the Caribbean and off China and northern Australia …, and in Yemen and Kenya, where it continues to this day. A fisherman ties a line around the tail of a remora and throws the fish into the water. The remora tightly attaches itself to a turtle, and the remora and its "catch" are then hauled ashore. 2018, Dagmar Fertl, André M. Landry, “Remoras”, in Bernd Würsig, J. G. M. Thewissen, Kit M. Kovacs, editors, Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals, 3rd edition, London, San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, page 793, column 1
2. (heraldry) A serpent.
   LORD SCARSDALE. … On the dexter ſide, the figure of Prudence repreſented by a woman, habited argent, mantled azure, holding in her ſiniſter hand a javelin entwined with a remora proper; … 23 July 1766, [Edward] Kimber, “Barons”, in The Peerage of England.[…], volume 60, London: Printed for H[enry] Woodfall,[…], →OCLC, page 217
3. (obsolete) A delay; a hindrance, an obstacle.
   Increased tone of the muscular fibres of the middle coat of the intestines may not infrequently give rise to a remora in the passage of their contents, and the effect of many of that class of medicines called astringents appears to be owing to their tonic powers. 1848, Charles Hastings, Robert J. N. Streeten, “CONSTIPATION”, in Robley Dunglison (reviser), edited by John Forbes, Alexander Tweedie, and John Conolly, The Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine: […] In Four Volumes, volumes I (Abdomen–Emmenagogues), Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, paragraph 4, page 480, column 2
   The local remoræ of blood which occur in cholera infantum here, will not bear, as a general practice, the abstraction of blood for their relief; they are more under the control of revellent remedies, not of a depletive kind. 1855, “Report on the Diseases of Missouri and Iowa”, in The Transactions of the American Medical Association, volume VIII, Philadelphia, Pa.: Printed for the [American Medical] Association, by T. K. and P. G. Collins, →OCLC, page 103
4. (obsolete, surgery) A surgical instrument, intended to retain parts in their places.