¿"pececillo"?
To practice my Spanish literacy, I'm reading my way through El Guardián entre el centeno (The Catcher in the Rye, en español). I came across the word "pececillo" and I can't find it in any dictionary.
Comparing the text against my English copy, it appears the translators intend this word to be "goldfish", but translating "goldfish" into Spanish gives me "el pez de colores" on this site and "carpa dorada" in my Spanish/English dictionary. And after looking in my German copy (I've used this tactic before!), they word they use is "Goldfisch", which means exactly what you'd think it means.
My question is: What does pececillo MEAN? Who uses it?
3 Answers
Hola,
It doesn't mean any type of fish in itself, like M said above, it translates to "little fish". On the other hand, when a "ote" is added, it means "big fish".
The diminutive form of "pez" may be "pececillo" (little fish), which I would think is more like a minnow or other tiny fish.
Pececillo is a minnow. This is weird because I thought I remembered learning the word from Spanishdict. It seems it's in the Spanishdict dictionary on the iPhone app, but not in the dictionary on the website. Strange.
