Plural of cisco; a type of whitefish found in North American freshwater lakes, especially the Great Lakes.
From Ojibwe 'siscowet,' designating this fish species. Like 'ciscoes,' this plural form preserves the Native American origin in English ichthyological vocabulary.
Both 'ciscoes' and 'ciscos' exist as plural forms, showing how English borrowed a word from another language but didn't quite decide on standard pluralization—a linguistic trace of cultural contact and incomplete integration.
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