A stingray is a sea fish with a wide, flat body shaped a bit like a kite or a big pancake, with eyes on top and its mouth underneath. It swims by moving the edges of its body up and down, so it looks like it is flying slowly through the water. At the back it has a long thin tail, and on that tail there is one or more sharp points (called barbs or spines). Those points carry poison. A stingray does not hunt people — it lies on the sandy bottom, half buried, waiting for small fish, shrimps and shellfish. The danger is that someone walking in shallow water steps on one without seeing it, and the tail comes up. That is why in some places people are told to slide their feet along the sand instead of stepping down; the fish feels you coming and swims away. Most stings hurt very much but are not deadly. Some kinds are small enough to hold in two hands, and some are wider than a car. Rays are close relatives of sharks — like sharks, their body has no real bone inside, only softer material (cartilage, the same stuff your ear is made of). Some people keep small ones in big tanks, and in an aquarium you can often touch them, because the keepers cut the sharp point off safely. In everyday English the word is used almost only for the animal; it is not a common word for anything else, though it sometimes gets used as a name for cars or boats to sound fast and dangerous.