The bigeye grunt has an oblong, somewhat compressed body with a large eye, a snoutwhich is shorter than the diameter of its eye and a large, protrusible mouth chin It has a deeply notched dorsal fin which contains 10-13 spines, with the 3rd spine (also occasionally the 4th) being the longest. The anal fin has 3 spines and 9-10, infrequently 8, soft rays. The caudal fin is deeply emarginate. The back is olive and the flanks and abdomen are silvery to white. There is a dark blotch on upper edge of the gill cover and there are small dark spots on the base of the dorsal fin, although these are not always present. This species attains a maximum total length of , although is more typical.
