fillet

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
fillet/ˈfɪlɪt/

▶noun

• 1 a fleshy boneless piece of meat from near the loins or the ribs of an animal.

  ■ (also fillet steak) a beef steak cut from the lower part of a sirloin.

  ■ a boned side of a fish.

• 2 a band or ribbon binding the hair.

• 3 Architecture a narrow flat band separating two mouldings.

  ■ a small band between the flutes of a column.

• 4 a roughly triangular strip of material which rounds off an interior angle between two surfaces.

• 5 a plain line impressed on the cover of a book.

▶verb (fillets, filleting, filleted) remove the bones from (a fish).

■ cut (fish or meat) into fillets.

– derivatives
filleter noun.

– origin ME: from OFr. filet ‘thread’, based on L. filum ‘thread’.