Entry · Thursday, October 1, 2026
Plate CXXVI. A 600-pound Atlantic bluefin tuna in a trap net off Favignana, Sicily, with a diver for scale.
Photo by Danilo Cedrone (UN FAO), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Bluefin Tuna
/BLOO-fin TOO-nuh/ n.- 1. A warm-blooded ocean fish (Thunnus thynnus) shaped like a torpedo that kept eating; widest just behind the gills, it tapers to a tail that does all the work while the middle collects the compliments.
- 2. colloq. Proof that thiccc has a market price. In 2019 a 612-pound bluefin sold at Tokyo's Toyosu auction for $3.1 million, roughly $5,000 a pound, and not one bidder called it heavy.
"The buyer did not haggle. You do not haggle with a fish that thiccc; you bow, you pay, and you clear your afternoon."
From blue + fin (its finlets flash steel blue) + tuna, via American Spanish atún, from Arabic al-tūn, from Greek thýnnos, probably from thýnō, 'to dart.' The Greeks named it for its speed. The auction house prices it by the pound.
Filed by
The Monaco fish market had one on ice and the other buyers simply stepped back, which I respected.
Ruling ADMITTED
Not torpedo-shaped. Torpedo-adjacent. The widest point is aft of the gills and forward of the tail. That is a different argument. Admitted.
In the margin
The Greeks named it for speed. The auction house prices it by the pound. The fish has not updated its biography to reflect current priorities.