Is a fish caught for ornamental purposes "pez" or "pescado"?

Question

I have read on this website that a fish is pez or pescado depending on whether it has been caught from the waters by human.

I understand that the usage of the words is not dependent on whether the fish is alive or dead but rather on the intention of taking it out of the water. So, if a fish is taken out of the water by a person for the pet fish industry, what does that make the fish (which will be kept alive and transferred into an aquarium)? Pez or pescado?

What if the fish is killed and subjected to a taxidermy treatment for exhibition purposes?

Relevant tweet from the RAE: "@RAEinforma Si pescar no tiene por que significar la muerte del pez... hay peces pescados en el mar y en las peceras tenemos pescados¿?" "#RAEconsultas Como sust., PESCADO alude al pez comestible sacado del agua a tal efecto, por lo que el de la pecera no lo es." — jacobo, Sep 14 '18 at 10:06
creo que la palabra esta mas cercana a ser de uso comestible: pez a pescado, cerdo a puerco, baca/toro a res. guajolote a pavo — Mike, Sep 14 '18 at 16:38
Also pescado is the past participle of pescar ( to fish ). So to theSpanish ear pescado sounds like fished: i.e. a verb transformed into noun. — enxaneta, Sep 15 '18 at 09:06

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 14 '18 at 06:15

Nice question. I would say that in both cases you should use pez. In the case of fish caught for an aquarium it is clear for me that you should use pez. In the case of a fish caught for taxidermy it may be unclear, so let's see what the dictionary says about pescado:

pescado
Del lat. piscātus.
m. Pez comestible sacado del agua por cualquiera de los procedimientos de pesca.

So pescado is any edible fish caught out the water. I think the trick is the purpose: if you have caught the fish to eat it, it is indeed pescado. But if you caught it for taxidermy you're supposed to keep the fish as it were alive, and obviously not for eating it. In fact, a stuffed fish may not even be edible at all. So I would say un pez disecado.

In fact, if you search "pez disecado" in Google Images you get results like this one:

And if you search for "pescado disecado" you get results that are closer to "pescado puesto a secar", like this one:

I think it is more complicated than that. If the fish is in an aquarium and you can eat it - tilapia comes to mind. That's a pescado, if you can't eat it, that's a pez. — Wilmer E. Henao, Nov 02 '22 at 15:59

Is a fish caught for ornamental purposes "pez" or "pescado"?

1 Answers1