chub

From chub (“short, thick fish species used as bait"; used metaphorically since 1558 for "lazy person”), from Middle English chubbe (“chub (the river fish)”), recorded since c.1450, probably an assibilated form of cub (“a lump, heap, mass”) and cob, from Middle English *cubbe (found only in derivative cubbel (“a block to which an animal is tethered”)), from Old Norse kubbr, kumbr (“block, stump, log”) and/or Old Norse kumben (“stumpy”), see kobbi.
Cognate with Icelandic kubbur (“block, cube”), Norwegian kubb, kubbe (“block, stump, log”), Swedish kubb (“block, log”), and perhaps to Icelandic kubba (“to hew, chop, lop”) and Russian кубышка (kubyška). More at cob, kibble.

inh

(by extension) Any of various vaguely related marine or freshwater fishes.


coney

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-coney.wav

(Jamaica) the Jamaican coney (Geocapromys brownii), a hutia endemic to Jamaica

Coney Island hot dog
Coney Island hot dog#English


cony

From Middle English cony, back formation from conies (plural), from Anglo-Norman conis, the plural of connil (“rabbit”), from Latin cunīculus, of unknown origin. Cognate to Dutch konijn, German Kaninchen, Spanish conejo, and Portuguese coelho. The original pronunciation was /ˈkʌni/ (for the spelling, compare honey and money), but the similarity to cunt (and particularly homophony with cunny) led through taboo avoidance both to the word's displacement in the main by rabbit and bunny and to the spelling-pronunciation /ˈkəʊni/ becoming standard.

An edible West Indian fish, a grouper given in different sources as: Epinephelus apua, the hind of Bermuda; nigger-fish, Epinephelus punctatus; Cephalopholis fulva.


gaper

From Middle English gaper, equivalent to gape + -er.

A comber, a fish of the species Serranus cabrilla.


jerker

A North American river chub, a hornyhead chub (Nocomis biguttatus).


lumper

(biology, linguistics) A scientist in one of various fields who prefers to keep categories such as species or dialects together in larger groups.


macho

Borrowed from Spanish macho (“male”), from Latin masculus. Doublet of male.

You can tell a macho, he has a funky walk / His western shirts and leather, always look so boss

1978, “Macho Man”, performed by Village People:

A macho person; a man who is masculine in an overly assertive or aggressive way.


marlin

A contraction of marlinspike, named so because of its pointed snout.

Any species of game fish belonging to either of the genera Tetrapturus or Makaira, with a crested dorsal fin and a pointed, spear-like projection of the upper jaw.


oxeye

From ox + eye. Apparently in some senses, specifically Buphthalmum, translated from Arabic عَيْن الْبَقَر (ʕayn al-baqar, literally “ox-eye”), as also the case for French œil-de-bœuf.

calque

عَيْن الْبَقَر

A fish of species Boops boops (bogue, box)


peal

From Middle English pele, peil, probably an apheretic variant of Middle English apel, appel, from Old French apel (“an appeal; pealing of bells”). Compare appeal.

der

Ingulphus, the chronicler of Croyland Abbey, mentions that a peal of seven bells was put up there in the tenth century, and that there was not such a harmonious peal in the whole of England; which implies that rings of bells were then common.

1908, H. B. Walters, chapter 1, in Church Bells:

(collective) A set of bells tuned to each other according to the diatonic scale.


ruff

In the same genus there is another species which makes better eating. This is A[rripis] georgianus, popularly known as the ruff or tommy ruff (again, nothing to do with anything bearing that name in the Old World), but now officially called 'Australian herring' (another aberration). [...] The ruff, on the other hand, although a smaller fish, makes good eating; its flesh is tender and tasty.

2014, Alan Davidson, “Australasian ‘salmon’”, in Tom Jaine, editor, The Oxford Companion to Food, 3rd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 44:

A fish of species Arripis georgianus, found in cool waters off the southern coast of Australia


shad

From Middle English shadde, from Old English sceadd, possibly from Celtic (compare Scottish Gaelic sgadan (“herring”), Welsh ysgadan) or from Scandinavian/North Germanic (compare dialectal Norwegian skadd (“small whitefish”), Old Norse skata (“kind of fish”)), but the order of borrowing is unclear and the ultimate origin of these words is obscure.

Each river had its village and its iron bridge that the train crossed with a blast of its whistle, and the girls bathing in the icy water leaped like shad as it passed, unsettling travelers with their fleeting breasts.

2003, Gabriel García Márquez, chapter 1, in Edith Grossman, transl., Living to Tell the Tale:

Any one of several species of food fishes that make up the genus Alosa in the family Clupeidae, to which the herrings also belong; river herring.


tarpon

Compare Dutch tarpoen. Suggestions that the term derives from a Native American term are unlikely.

You're a lucky guy to be eating anything right now. Instead you might easily be feeding the tunny fish and tarpon, to say nothing of the astronesthes and myctophids--

2021, Edward Stratemeyer, Don Sturdy on the Ocean Bottom:

Any of several fishes of the family Elopidae or Megalopidae, especially a large silvery game fish.


tog

en-verb

tog (third-person singular simple present togs, present participle togging, simple past and past participle togged)

togs (present singular third-person)
togging (participle present)
togged (participle past)
togged (past)

Another mindset that seems to work well for new togging recruits is to ask them to wait until the fish ‘takes the rod down’.

2023, Jason Colby, “Tog Jigging: Do It Your Way!”, in The Fisherman:


bleak

From Middle English bleke (“small river fish, bleak, blay”), perhaps an alteration (due to Old English blǣc (“bright”) or Old Norse bleikja) of Old English blǣġe (“bleak, blay, gudgeon”); or perhaps from a diminutive of Middle English *bleye (“blay”), equivalent to blay + -ock or blay + -kin. See blay.

inh

Alburnus alburnus
Alburnus alburnus#Translingual

A small European river fish (Alburnus alburnus), of the family Cyprinidae.


braise

Pagellus bogaraveo
Pagellus bogaraveo#Translingual

Pagellus centrodontus
Pagellus centrodontus#Translingual

Pagellus bogaraveo, syn. Pagellus centrodontus (sea bream)


bream

From Middle English breme, from Old French breme, bresme, braisme, brasme (whence French brème), from Frankish *brahsma, *brahsima (whence Dutch brasem), from Proto-West Germanic *brahsmō (whence Old High German brahsma, brahsmo, brahsina, brehsina (whence German Brasse, Brachse (“bream”))), from Proto-Germanic *brahsmô, *brahsinō, *brahsmaz (“bream”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *brehwanaz (“shining, glittery, sparkly”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerek- (“to shine”) (see braid (verb)).

der

A European fresh-water cyprinoid fish of the genus Abramis, little valued as food. Several species are known.

Abramis brama
Abramis brama#Translingual

(British) A species in that genus, Abramis brama.

An American fresh-water fish, of various species of Lepomis and allied genera, which are also called sunfishes and pondfishes.

mudfish

American freshwater fish, of various species of Pomotis and allied genera

A marine sparoid fish of the genus Pagellus, and allied genera.


char

Unknown, perhaps from Celtic, such as Irish ceara (“fiery red”) (found in personal names). Or, perhaps borrowed from Middle Low German schar (“flounder, dab”), from Proto-Germanic *skardaz, related to *skeraną (“to cut”), referring to its shape. If so, related to shard.

Among other native delicacies, they give you fresh char.

Any of the several species of fishes of the genus Salvelinus.


chimera

monolith

antonym(s) of “anything composed of very disparate parts”

Variant of Middle English chimere, chymere, & chymera under renewed Latin influence from the 16th century, from French chimère, from Latin Chimaera, from Ancient Greek Χίμαιρα (Khímaira, “fire-breathing mythological monster, fire-spewing Lycian or Cilician mountain”), from χίμαιρα (khímaira, “she-goat”, from χίμαρος (khímaros, “male goat”) + -α (-a)), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰey-. In reference to the fish, directly from Latin Chimaera, used by Linnaeus. In reference to organisms with distinct areas of different genetic makeups, a calque of German Chimäre, used by Hans Winkler in 1907.

af

The chimeras […] are an extant group of about 30 species. They have the upper jaw fused with the cranium and a gill cover over the four gill slits. They also have toothy plates that give them a ratlike appearance, thus the common name "ratfish." The group occurs in ocean depths worldwide, where they mainly feed on invertebrates.

2012, Harold M. Tyus, “Diversity 1: Chordates to Sharks”, in Ecology and Conservation of Fishes, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, pages 34–35:

(zoology) Alternative form of chimaera, a cartilaginous marine fish in the subclass Holocephali and especially the order Chimaeriformes, with a blunt snout, long tail, and a spine before the first dorsal fin.


flake

From Middle English flake (“a flake of snow”), from Old English flacca and/or Old Norse flak (“loose or torn piece”) (compare Old Norse flakna (“to flake or chip”)), from Proto-Germanic *flaką (“something flat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat, broad, plain”). Cognate with Norwegian flak (“slice, sliver”, literally “piece torn off”), Swedish flak (“a thin slice”), Danish flage (“flake”), German Flocke (“flake”), Dutch vlak (“smooth surface, plain”) and vlok (“flake”), as well as with Latin plaga (“flat surface, district, region”) and Welsh llech (“slate, tablet”). Doublet of plage.


flake

A name given to dogfish to improve its marketability as a food, perhaps from etymology 1.

Larger shark received about 10%/kg less than those in the 4-6 kg range. Most of the Victorian landed product is wholesaled as carcasses on the Melbourne Fish Market where it is sold to fish and chip shops, the retail sector and through restaurants as ‘flake’.

1999, R. Shotton, Case studies of the management of elasmobranch fisheries, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Part 1, page 746:

Susan said, ‘Get me a piece of flake and a serve of chips.’

2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 72:

The local fish shop sold a bit of flake (shark) but most people were too spoiled to eat shark. The main item on the Kiwi table was still snapper, and there was plenty of them, caught by the Kiwis themselves, so no shortage whatsoever.

2007, Archie Gerzee, WOW! Tales of a Larrikin Adventurer, page 141:

(Australia) The meat of the gummy shark.


hag

From Middle English hagge, hegge (“demon, old woman”), shortening of Old English hægtesse, hægtes (“harpy, witch”), from Proto-West Germanic *hagatussjā. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Häkse (“witch”), Dutch heks, German Hexe (“witch”). Doublet of hex.

A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.


hake

From Middle English hake, probably a shortened form (due to North Germanic influence) of English dialectal haked (“pike”). Compare Norwegian hakefisk (“trout, salmon”), Middle Low German haken (“kipper”). More at haked.

Hake is an expensive fish—and is also very vulnerable to damage by mis-handling.

1964 October, P. Baxter, “Fleetwood is sceptical of BR's fish train plan”, in Modern Railways, page 255:

Off the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service is helping industry explore fisheries for deep shrimp, rattails, chimeras, orange roughy, smoothheads, slackjaw eels, blue hake, skates and dogfish, which the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group, in an effort to improve their marketability, has renamed cape shark.

1995 December 26, William J. Broad, “Creatures of the Deep Find Their Way to the Table”, in The New York Times:

One of several species of marine gadoid fishes, of the genera Phycis, Merluccius, and allies.


molly

From Mollienesia, an invalid taxonomic name for the genus, influenced by the personal name Molly.

A fish of the genus Poecilia, except for those known as guppies.


pearl

en-noun

pearl (countable and uncountable, plural pearls)

Horace
Jean Jannon
New Testament
Vergil
en:pearl
en:pearl (disambiguation)
en:pearl (typography)

From Middle English perle, from Old French perle of uncertain etymology. Probably via unattested Medieval Latin *pernula, from Latin perna (“haunch; a marine bivalve shaped like a leg of lamb”) but also derived from Medieval Latin perla, from Latin perula (“little bag”). Its typographic use follows the name given by Jean Jannon to the type used in his miniature editions of Vergil, Horace, & the New Testament in the 1620s, which were the smallest printed works to his time. Its surfing use derives from the supposed resemblance to pearl diving.


pout

From Middle English *poute, from Old English *pūte as in ǣlepūta, ǣlepūte (“eelpout”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to swell”). Related to pout (“to push one's lip out”).

Ameiurus nebulosus
Ameiurus nebulosus#Translingual

Trisopterus luscus
Trisopterus luscus#Translingual

(rare) Any of various fishes such as the hornpout (Ameiurus nebulosus, the brown bullhead), the pouting (Trisopterus luscus) and the eelpouts (Zoarcidae).


pride

en-noun

pride (countable and uncountable, plural prides)

shame

antonym(s) of “a sense of one's own worth”

humility

antonym(s) of “proud or disdainful behavior”

From Middle English pryde, pride, from Old English prȳde, prȳte (“pride”) (compare Old Norse prýði (“bravery, pomp”)), derivative of Old English prūd (“proud”). More at proud. The verb derives from the noun, at least since the 12th century.

The quality or state of being proud; an unreasonable overestimation of one's own superiority in terms of talents, looks, wealth, importance etc., which comes across as being lofty, distant, and often showing contempt of others.

𒌨

quality or state of being proud; inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, rank etc.


scaly

From Middle English scali, skaly. By surface analysis, scale + -y.

(South Africa) The scaly yellowfish (Labeobarbus natalensis).


skate

From Middle English skat, scate (also schat), from Old Norse skata (“skate”). Cognate with Icelandic skata (“skate, ray”), Norwegian skate (“skate”).

The fishermen crowding in the cafés were also waiting for the end of the storm, when the fish, reassured, would rise to the surface after the bait. Soles, hog fish and skate were returning from their nocturnal expeditions. Day was now breaking.

1952, Nikos Kazantzakis, chapter 1, in Carl Wildman, transl., Zorba the Greek, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, translation of Βίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά [Víos kai politeía tou Aléxi Zormpá], →ISBN, page 3:

Other deep creatures now being harvested or targeted as seafood include rattails, skates, squid, red crabs, orange roughy, black oreos, smooth oreos, hoki, blue ling, southern blue whiting, sablefish, black scabbard fish and spiny dogfish.

A fish of the family Rajidae in the superorder Batoidea (rays) which inhabit most seas. Skates generally have small heads with protruding muzzles, and wide fins attached to a flat body.


stickleback

From dialectal stickle (“a prickle, spine, sting”), from Old English sticel + bæc. See stick (transitive verb) and compare banstickle.

[I]n my exile and irkeſome diſcontented abandonment, the ſillieſt millers thombe, or contemptible ſtickle-banck of my enemies, is as buſie nibbling about my fame, as if I were a deade man throwne amongeſt them to feede vpon.

1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, page 1:

Any one of numerous species of small fish of the family Gasterosteidae. The back is armed with two or more sharp spines. They inhabit both salt and brackish water, and construct nests from weeds.


tang

From Middle English tange, variant of tonge (“tongs, fang”), from Old Norse tangi (“pointed metal tool”), perhaps related to Old Norse tunga (“tongue”). But see also Middle Dutch tanger (“sharp, tart, pinching”).

ruoti

projecting part of an object by means of which it is secured to some other part

angel

part of small instrument inserted into handle

(zoology) Any of a group of saltwater fish from the family Acanthuridae, especially the genus Zebrasoma.


toxotes

From Ancient Greek τοξότης (toxótēs, “bowman, archer”).

uder

Any fish of genus Toxotes, the archerfishes.


whaler

without the wine–whine merger, non-rhotic

Composed of whale + -er. In sense 1, displaced Old English hwælhunta (literally “whale hunter”).

ncog

The whalers (or requiem sharks) are one of the largest and best known family of sharks. Worldwide there are 48 species in 12 genera. However, relatively few species are on the Great Barrier Reef.

1997, John Ernest Randall, Gerald R Allen, Roger C. Steene, Fishes of the Great Barrier Reef, 2nd edition, page 17:

2003, Mark Thornley, Veda Dante, Peter Wilson, Action Guide: Surfing Australia, Tuttle Publishing, HK, page 264,
The whaler shark family, which includes the grey reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos),silvertip (Carcharhinus albimarginatus), bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) and bronze whaler (Carcharhinus brachyurus) are fast moving, territorial and have bitten divers snd surfers in the past.

You can also take a dip with lemon, whaler and other nonpredatory sharks.

2008, Alan Murphy, Justin Flynn, Olivia Pozzan, Paul Harding, Queensland & the Great Barrier Reef, 5th edition, Lonely Planet, page 219:

(Australia) Any shark of the family Carcharhinidae; a requiem shark.


wrasse

Plural of dialectal (Cornwall) wrah, wraugh, wrath, from Cornish wragh (“old woman, hag; wrasse”), lenited form of gwragh.

bor

Any one of numerous edible, marine, spiny-finned fishes of the family Labridae, of which several species are found in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast of Europe. Many of the species are brightly colored.


sunny

From Middle English sunni, from Old English *sunniġ. Cognate with West Frisian sinnich, Low German sünnig, Dutch zonnig, German sonnig. Equivalent to sun + -y.


swordfish

en-noun

swordfish (countable and uncountable, plural swordfish or swordfishes)

From Middle English swerdfysche, from Old English *sweordfisċ. Equivalent to sword + fish.

Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

Xiphias gladius
Xiphias gladius#Translingual

A large marine fish with a long, pointed bill, Xiphias gladius.

A sudoku technique involving possible cell locations for a digit, or pair, or triple, in uniquely three rows and three columns only. This allows for the elimination of candidates around the grid.


swordfish

en-verb

swordfish (third-person singular simple present swordfishes, present participle swordfishing, simple past and past participle swordfished)

swordfishes (present singular third-person)
swordfishing (participle present)
swordfished (participle past)
swordfished (past)


stonefish

en-noun

stonefish (plural stonefishes or stonefish)

A venomous tropical marine fish resembling a piece of rock, of the genus Synanceia, found in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean


jewfish

каменен костур

any of many types of fish including the Japanese seabass

Any of several fish species, principally groupers and similar-appearing fish

Epinephelus itajara (Atlantic goliath grouper, spotted jewfish)

Lateolabrax japonicus (Japanese seabass)

Argyrosomus japonicus (silver jewfish, also known as the mulloway jewfish in eastern Australia)

Tandanus tandanus (eel-tailed catfish, freshwater jewfish, dewfish)

Glaucosoma hebraicum (West Australian dhufish, Westralian jewfish, western jewfish)

Glaucosoma buergeri (Westralian jewfish)

Stereolepis gigas (black jewfish, Pacific jewfish)


trevally

Any of certain fishes of the family Carangidae, especially of the genera Caranx and Pseudocaranx.


flathead

flathead catfish
flathead catfish#English

(US, informal) Alternative form of flathead catfish


kingfish

kingfish (plural kingfishes or kingfish)

Other Atlantic fish
king mackerel (Scomberomorus cavalla)

crevalle jack (Caranx hippos) of Mauritania

Caranx ignobilis
Caranx ignobilis#Translingual

giant trevally or travelli (Caranx ignobilis) of South Africa


squat

From Middle English squatten, from Old French esquatir, escatir (“compress, press down, lay flat, crush”), from es- (“ex-”) + quatir (“press down, flatten”), from Vulgar Latin *coactire (“press together, force”), from Latin coāctus, perfect passive participle of cōgō (“force together, compress”).
The sense “nothing” may be the source or a derivation of diddly-squat.

uder

A place of concealment in which a hare spends time when inactive, especially during the day; a form.


ide

Borrowed from French ide, from Scientific Latin idus (species name), from Swedish id.

a pike says to the pike-folk / a whitefish asked an ide, a / salmon another salmon: / ‘Have they died, the famous men / have Kaleva's sons been lost […]?’

1989, Elias Lönnrot, translated by Keith Bosley, The Kalevala, section XLVII:

Leuciscus idus
Leuciscus idus#Translingual

A freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, found across northern Europe and Asia, especially Leuciscus idus.


mullet

Wikispecies
From Middle English molet, mulett, from Old French mulet (now ‘grey mullet’), from Latin mullus (“red mullet”), from Ancient Greek μύλλος (múllos).

A fish of the family Mullidae (order Syngnathiformes), especially the genus Mullus (red mullets or goatfish).

moll

fish of the family Mullidae (red mullets)

(especially US) A fish of the family Mugilidae (order Mugiliformes) (grey mullets).

بُورِيّ

fish of the family Mugilidae (grey mullets)

(US) Any of several species of freshwater fish in the sucker family (especially in the genus Moxostoma, redhorses)


mullet

From Middle English molet, from Old French molette (“rowel”).

Grogan, Creation of 1859, or Moyvore, Westmeath. [...] Arms,—Barry of sex or and sable, on a chief engrailed azure a lion passant of the first. Crest,—A lion's head erased sable, charged with a mullet or.

1871, Debrett's illustrated baronetage and knightage (and companionage) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, page 215:

(heraldry) A star with straight edges and usually with five or six points.


torpedo

* Borrowed from Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish; numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“I am stiff, numb, torpid; I am astounded; I am inactive”) + -ēdō (noun suffix), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”). In the military sense coined by Robert Fulton in 1805. Cognate with Old English steorfan (“to die”), Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”), Lithuanian tirpstu (“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonic трупети (trupeti).
* (type of car): From 1908, after "the Torpedo", a car designed by Captain Theo Masui.

cog

Faire Queene, forbeare to angle for the fiſh, / Which being caught, ſtrikes him that takes it dead, / I meane that vile Torpedo, Gaueſton, / That now I hope flotes on the Iriſh Seas

1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act I]:

The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in which he is born, and the consequent homage that benumbed his faculties like the torpedo's touch […].

1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men:

"A childhood Misadventure with a Torpedo," Dixon, with a brief move of his head toward Mason, confides, "— thus his Sensitivity at all References to the,"— whispering,— "electrickal!"

1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 286:

(zoology) An electric ray of the genus Torpedo.

(military) A cylindrical explosive projectile that can travel underwater and is used as a weapon.

(science fiction) A similar projectile that can travel through space.

In several human neurodegenerative diseases, focal axonal swellings on Purkinje cells – known as torpedoes – have been associated with Purkinje cell loss. Interestingly, torpedoes are also reported to appear transiently during development in rat cerebellum.

2016 November 2, Lovisa Ljungberg, Daneck Lang-Ouellette, Angela Yang, Sriram Jayabal, Sabrina Quilez, Alanna J. Watt, “Transient Developmental Purkinje Cell Axonal Torpedoes in Healthy and Ataxic Mouse Cerebellum”, in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, volume 10, →DOI, article 248, page 1:

(neuroscience) A focal ovoid swelling on the axons of Purkinje cells, observed in several diseases such as essential tremor and spinocerebellar ataxia.


pikey

The first time he comes to the surface of the water he gasps for breath, his huge mouth gapes, he gives his head a shake and out tumbles the bait, hooks and all, not one of them having had hold, and away goes pikey quite satisfied with his entertainment pro tem., and wondering what that ugly two-legged moster with the hop pole in his hand, and who looked in such a state of perplexity and stew, had to do with the matter

1867, Francis, A book on angling, page 93:

In 1876, in twelve fishings in the same months, there were caught 31 Pikeys, 4 Spotted Dogs, and 441 Nowds.

1881, Robert Lloyd Patterson, The Birds, Fishes & Cetacea of Belfast Lough, page 226:

A pikey's a pike. It's the dirtiest fish in the water.

2011, Jim Nally, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, →ISBN:

The boated Pikey makes a series of tailstands as it lunges about, biting at feet, bags, hands, creels and thwarts.

2015, E.M. Grant, Grant's Guide to Fishes: The Fisherman's Bible, →ISBN:


pikey

en-adj

pikey (comparative more pikey, superlative most pikey)

more pikey (comparative)
most pikey (superlative)

Like its schoolboy master, the rod built from the cane then chosen has since had many a narrow escape "by flood and fell," and not a few damaged 'tips,' aye, and 'joints' too; but its main timbers are as sound as ever, and I trust may yet be destined to wave death over many a pikey pool and glittering torrent when the hand that chose them is no longer able to do justice to their supple graces.

1865, Henry Cholmondeley-Pennell, The Book of the Pike, page 126:

The Broadland waters are pikey waters. There is no doubt that if Norfolk is famous for any one species of fish, then it is for none other than Esox himself, the predatory pike.

1965, The Fishing Gazette [New Series] - Issues 4560-4585, page 14:

The name gar-pike has gone some way to suggest the non-existent relationship, while (two dorsal fins notwithstanding) the pike-perches look remarkably 'pikey'.

1979, Len Cacutt, British Freshwater Fishes: The Story of Their Evolution, page 98:

We travel along tortuous forest roads in the most 'pikey' part ofVarmland — the whole time alongside water.

2003, Michael Jensen, Fly-Fishing: For Pike, →ISBN, page 12:

Associated with or filled with pike (fish).


pikey

Possibly from obsolete pike (“depart or travel”), or possibly from turnpike. The verb is derived from the stereotype that the Romani people or other travellers are thieves.

“They must be the pikeys who live up there. They're a nasty bunch. Shouldn't get mixed up with them.” “Well, we told them to fuck off, they didn't seem that nasty to me! What are pikeys anyway?” “Well, they're like vagabonds.”

2012, Pat Coppard, In Spite of Everything: a Life-story, →ISBN, page 15:

Gipsies and the pikey race generally were a class outside Lord Sandbar's previous experience, and he listened greedily.

(UK, Ireland, ethnic slur, offensive) An itinerant person, especially one of Romani or Irish Traveller heritage.


gilt-head bream

en-noun

gilt-head bream (plural gilt-head breams)

Sparus aurata
Sparus aurata#Translingual

A fish found in the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coasts of Europe (Sparus aurata).


horse mackerel

Any of several large fishes of many species:


grey mullet

Any of various edible fish, of the family Mugilidae, found worldwide in coastal waters and rivers.


bluefish

bluefish (countable and uncountable, plural bluefishes or bluefish)

Pomatomus saltatrix
Pomatomus saltatrix#Translingual

A voracious fish (Pomatomus saltatrix) found in waters of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean.


large bonito

Katsuwonus pelamis
Katsuwonus pelamis#Translingual

Katsuwonus pelamis, a large tropical fish allied to the tunny.


piranha

First attested in 1869. The term entered English either via Portuguese piranha or Spanish piraña, from Old Tupi pirãîa.

(ichthyology) Any of the carnivorous or frugivorous freshwater fish living in South American rivers and belonging to the subfamily Serrasalminae.


buffalo fish

buffalo fish (countable and uncountable, plural buffalo fishes or buffalo fish)

buffalo fishes (plural)
buffalo fish (plural)

Any of several North American freshwater sucker fishes of the genus Ictiobus, similar to carp but having a humped back.


shiner

From Middle English schyner, equivalent to shine + -er. Compare Old English sċīnere (“one who produces deceptive appearances, magician”).

cog

Any silvery fish, such as the horsefish, menhaden, or moonfish.

Fargo wasn't sure what difference it made if one gambler passed something to another, unless it was to be used in cheating, a shiner maybe. But nobody at that table would let a shiner pass.

2003, Jon Sharpe, Trailsman #258: Casino Carnage:

A small reflective surface used for cheating at card games.


megrim

MEGRIM (LEPIDORHOMBUS WHIFFIAGONIS)[…]NOTE: In Ireland,this species is often called "witch", a name that properly belongs to the craigfluke, Glyptocephalus cynaglossus, which is a right-handed flatfish. Both species are marketed as "white sole."

A flatfish of the genus Lepidorhombus native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean; specifically, a Cornish sole, sail-fluke, witch or whiff (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis).

patarača

type of flatfish of the genus Lepidorhombus


cobbler

Fished for cobblers in the evening. The warbler sings its night-song.

1831 November 10, George Fletcher Moore, “The Journey”, in Martin Doyle, editor, Extracts from the Letters and Journals of George Fletcher Moore, Esq. […], London: Orr and Smith, […]; Dublin: W. Curry, Jun. & Co. […], published 1834, →OCLC, page 122:

The South Australian catfish (Cnidoglanis macrocephalus), a species of catfish native to Australia which has dorsal and pectoral fins bearing sharp, venomous spines.

The soldier or South Australian cobbler (Gymnapistes marmoratus), a brown fish native to southern Australian estuaries which is not closely related to Cnidoglanis macrocephalus, but also has venemous spines on its dorsal and pectoral fins.


poll

From Middle English pol, polle ("scalp, pate"), from or cognate with Middle Dutch pol, pōle, polle (“top, summit; head”), from Proto-West Germanic *poll, from Proto-Germanic *pullaz (“round object, head, top”), from Proto-Indo-European *bolno-, *bōwl- (“orb, round object, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”).
Akin to Scots pow (“head, crown, scalp, skull”), Saterland Frisian pol (“round, full, brimming”, adj), German Low German Polle, Poll (“round object, ball”), German Low German Poller (“head, tree-top, bulb”), Danish puld (“crown of a hat”), Swedish dialectal pull (“head”).
Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1625, from the notion of "counting heads".

cog

The pollard or European chub, a kind of fish.


halibut

From Middle English *halibutt, equivalent to holy + but (“flatfish”), since the fish was often eaten on holy days. Compare Dutch heilbot, German Heiligbutt, Heilbutt, Heilbutte. Compare also Danish helleflynder, Swedish helgeflundra and Norwegian Nynorsk hellefisk.

[...] she frowned a displeased frown and told me for heaven's sake to stop goggling like a dead halibut.

1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter IV:

A large flatfish of the genus Hippoglossus, which sometimes leaves the ocean floor and swims vertically.


ichthyophobia

Ichthyophobia, defined as the fear of fish, is especially strong in the Navajo Indians, who will not eat fish nor have anything to do with articles made in the shape of fish.

1898, Current Literature, volume 23, page 521:

Such ichthyophobia occurred at the time of first European contact among the Tasmanian Aborigines.

1994, Frederick J. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present, University of Wisconsin Press, published 1994, →ISBN, page 253:

'How dreadful. I could never go under the water. The fish frighten me.'
'My wife has ichthyophobia, you see,' Al-Nassar chimed in. 'The unfortunate condition confines her to swimming pools.'

2011, Miranda Darling, The Siren's Sting, Allen & Unwin, published 2011, →ISBN:


hagfish

en-noun

hagfish (countable and uncountable, plural hagfish or hagfishes)

Any of several primitive eellike fish, of the family Myxinidae, having a sucking mouth with rasping teeth, and sometimes used as food or for eelskin leather.


drum

Perhaps back-formation from drumslade (“drummer”), from Middle Dutch trommelslach (“drumbeat”), from trommel (“drum”) + slach (“beat”) (Dutch slag).
Or perhaps borrowed directly from a continental Germanic language; compare Middle Dutch tromme (“drum”), Middle Low German trumme (“drum”) et al. Compare also Middle High German trumme, trumbe (“drum”), Old High German trumba (“trumpet”).

back-form

construction barrel
construction barrel#English


sucker

From Middle English souker, sokere, sukkere, soukere, equivalent to suck (verb) + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Suuger, West Frisian sûker (“sucker”), Dutch zuiger (“sucker”), German Sauger (“dummy; vacuum”).

(ichthyology) Any fish in the family Catostomidae of North America and eastern Asia, which have mouths modified into downward-pointing, suckerlike structures for feeding in bottom sediments.

(US, obsolete) A migrant lead miner working in the Driftless Area of northwest Illinois, southwest Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa, working in summer and leaving for winter, so named because of the similarity to the migratory patterns of the North American Catostomidae.

One poor sucker had actually given her his life’s savings.

This ſucker thinks nane wiſe. / But him that can to immenſe riches riſe:

1728, Allan Ramsay, “The General Mistake”, in The Poems of Allan Ramsay, new edition, volume 1, published 1800, page 352:

They had sorcerized me, and I were a done-over sucker; so I jist gin up. No sooner had we ’rove at the boat, instead o’ feastin’ me on gully-whompin oysters, they nabbed me quick as a snappin’ turtle

1859, Oliver Stanley, “The Escape from the Whale”, in Hardin E. Taliaferro, editor, Fisher's River (North Carolina): Scenes and Characters, page 126:

“George, them fellows took me for a sucker. Do I look like a sucker?” ¶ “No, Bill; you look like a nice, smart counter-hopper,” I replied.

1887, George Devol, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi, page 221:

Then he burst into a stream of horrible profanity. "What's the game?" he cried, glaring round him. "Do you think I am easy and that you can play me for a sucker? Is it a frame-up, or what?

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

“After twenty years you’re still a sucker for her lies? […]”

1934, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 13, in The Thin Man, New York: Vintage, published 1972, page 59:

(US, slang) A person who is easily deceived, tricked or persuaded to do something; a naive or gullible person.


northern

en-adj

northern (comparative more northern, superlative most northern)

more northern (comparative)
most northern (superlative)

From Middle English northerne, from Old English norþerne, from Proto-West Germanic *norþrōnī, from Proto-Germanic *nurþrōnijaz. Cognate with Old High German nordrōni and Old Norse norrœnn.
Morphologically north + -ern.

Les Dawson was a famous northern comedian.

(British) Characteristic of the North of England (usually capitalised)


permit

From Middle English permitten, borrowed from Middle French permettre, from Latin permittō (“give up, allow”), from per (“through”) + mittō (“send”).

رخصة

an artifact or document rendering something allowed or legal

learner's permit
learner's permit#English

An artifact or document rendering something allowed or legal.


bunker

Clipping of mossbunker, a variant of mossbanker, from Dutch marsbanker (“common scad or Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus)”), from Marsdiep (“deep tide-race between Den Helder and Texel in the Netherlands”) + bank (“shallow part of the sea near a coast”) + -er (suffix forming nouns denoting male inhabitants of a place).

der

Ten hours of footage revealed the young [shark's] habits, such as diving for squid up to 150 feet deep, then moving closer to shore to feast on huge schools of bunker fish.

2024 June 24, Melanie Haiken, “Baby great white shark reveals huge nursery near NYC in scientific first”, in National Geographic:

(US, regional) The menhaden, any of several species of fish in the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium.


sierra

en-noun

sierra (countable and uncountable, plural sierras)

Borrowed from Spanish sierra, from Latin serra, "saw," referring to the saw-tooth profile of the crestline of the range seen from a distance.


golden

From Middle English golden, a restored form (due to the noun gold) of earlier Middle English gulden, gylden, gilden ("golden"; > English gilden), from Old English gylden (“golden”), from Proto-West Germanic *gulþīn, from Proto-Germanic *gulþīnaz (“golden, made of gold”), equivalent to gold + -en.
Cognate with Dutch gouden, gulden (“golden”), German gülden, golden (“golden”), Danish gylden (“golden”). Doublet of gilden. More at gold.

gloss

"golden"; > English <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">gilden</i>

der

[ˈɡɒʊ̯ɫ.dn̩]

Kyphosus vaigiensis, a fish found in southeast Asia.


sergeant

From Middle English sergeant, sergeaunt, serjent, serjaunt, serjawnt, sergant, from Old French sergeant, sergent, serjant, sergient, sergant (“sergeant, servant”), from Medieval Latin servientem, accusative of serviens (“a servant, vassal, soldier, apparitor”), from Latin serviēns (“serving”), present participle of serviō (“serve, be a slave to”). Doublet of servant and servient.
The shift from /vj/ > /dʒ/ was a regular development in Old French. Compare cavea > cage, salvia > sage.
The fish is so called because of its stripes, supposed to resemble a sergeant's insignia of rank.
The pronunciation with /ɑɹ/ is due to a widespread development of Middle English er + consonant (see barn, start etc.). In sergeant, the spelling was standardised in one way, the pronunciation in another (compare clerk, derby in Commonwealth English, further parson vs. person, and varsity vs. university).


dogfish

From dog + fish. Compare Greek σκυλόψαρο (skylópsaro, “dogfish”), Latin canicula (“dogfish”, literally “little dog”), Italian pescecane (“dogfish”), French chien de mer (literally “dog of the sea”), German Meerhund (literally “seadog”) and Hundfisch (“dogfish”), and English seadog. For non-Indo-European cognates, see Maltese kelb il-baħar (literally “dog of the sea”) and Turkish köpek balığı (“shark”), likely calques from Indo-European languages.

Dornhaiartige

small sharks of the Scyliorhinidae, Dalatiidae and Squalidae families

dogfish orientalis

a grunt native to coral reefs of the western Pacific Ocean

Plunket's dogfish (Centroscymnus plunketi

rasptooth dogfish (Etmopterus sheikoi

alternately known as Miroscyllium sheikoi

A kitefin shark, any shark from family Dalatiidae


lox

Coordinate term: gox (“gaseous oxygen”)

[Man]: Lox tanking secured? / [Man 2]: Lox tanking secured.

1959, “I Shot an Arrow into the Air” (0:45 from the start), in The Twilight Zone, season 1, episode 15:

Liquid oxygen (molecular oxygen in liquid form).


sablefish

en-noun

sablefish (plural sablefishes or sablefish)

Other deep creatures now being harvested or targeted as seafood include rattails, skates, squid, red crabs, orange roughy, black oreos, smooth oreos, hoki, blue ling, southern blue whiting, sablefish, black scabbard fish and spiny dogfish.

1995 December 26, William J. Broad, “Creatures of the Deep Find Their Way to the Table”, in The New York Times:

A dark-coloured marine fish of species Anoplopoma fimbria, of North American Pacific waters.


albacore

From Portuguese albacor, from Arabic اَلْبَكُورَة (al-bakūra, “the young camels”).

der

اَلْبَكُورَة

But most of all, they were jealous because these strangers feasted daily on great turtle, albacore and sail-fish, the sweetest of all seafoods.

1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 127:

Thunnus alalunga
Thunnus alalunga#Translingual

A longfin tuna, a large marine fish (Thunnus alalunga) of warm seas, having edible flesh.


grouper

From Portuguese garoupa (“grouper”). Compare garrupa.

/ˈɡɹuːpə(ɹ)/

Any of various large food and game fishes of the subfamily Epinephelinae, especially the genera Epinephelus and Mycteroperca, which inhabit warm seas.

black grouper

Hyporthodus mystacinus; Mycteroperca bonaci

comb grouper

Mycteroperca rubra; Mycteroperca acutirostris

humpback grouper

Cromileptes altivelis, syn. Epinephelus altivelis

snowy grouper

Hyporthodus niveatus; Hyporthodus niphobles


molid

(zoology) Any fish in the family Molidae.


skipper

From Middle English skippere, skyppare, equivalent to skip + -er.

Sprattus sprattus
Sprattus sprattus#Translingual

Any of several marine fishes that often leap above water, especially Cololabis saira (Pacific saury) and Sprattus sprattus (European sprat).

w:Webster's Dictionary#Webster's New International Dictionary 1909

The cheese maggot, the larva of a cheese fly (family Piophilidae), which leaps to escape predators.


blowfish

en-noun

blowfish (plural blowfish or blowfishes)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Blowfish.wav

Fugu, the blowfish or globefish, offers taste, health and adventure in every bite.

1981 November 29, Steve Lohr, “ONE MAN'S FUGU IS ANOTHER'S POISON”, in The New York Times:

A delicacy popular in Japan, consisting of the fish served raw as sushi or perhaps fried. It may, if improperly prepared, contain considerably deadly levels of neurotoxins.

河豚

a delicacy popular in Japan served raw as sushi that may, if improperly prepared, contain deadly levels of neurotoxins


pufferfish

pufferfish (countable and uncountable, plural pufferfish or pufferfishes)

pufferfish (plural)
pufferfishes (plural)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-pufferfish.wav

Recently, however, a scientist in Britain proposed a short cut that would use the genome of the fugu, a pufferfish known as a dangerous delicacy among Japanese sushi eaters, to speed the search for human genes.

1993 December 28, James Younger, “Fishy Short Cut To Mapping Human Genome”, in The New York Times:

Any species of fish of the family Tetraodontidae that have the ability to inflate themselves to a globe several times their normal size by swallowing water or air when threatened; puffer, blowfish, swellfish, balloonfish, globefish.


flying gurnard

Any tropical marine fish of the family Dactylopteridae, having immense wing-like pectoral fins used to glide through the water.


cisco

From French ciscoette (“siscowet”), from Ojibwe siscowet (“cooks itself”).

Any North American freshwater fish of certain species of the genus Coregonus that live in cold-water lakes.


cardinal tetra

A freshwater fish (Paracheirodon axelrodi, family Characidae), native to rivers in South America, popular as an aquarium fish.


John Dory

Unknown, many theories exist. See the Wikipedia article on John Dory for more.

An edible marine fish (Zeus faber or Zeus ocellata), having long dorsal spines.


minnow

The noun is derived from Late Middle English menew, menowe (“small fish; (specifically) common minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus); or stickleback (possibly the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus)”), from Old English *mynwe, an oblique form of *mynu, a variant of myne (“minnow; small fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *muniwu (“minnow; small fish”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“small”). Possibly influenced by Anglo-Norman menu (“small”) and Old French menu (“small”), and English minim (“anything very minute; applied to animalcula and the like”).
The adjective and verb are derived from the noun.
cognates
* Middle Low German mone, möne (Dutch meun, West Frisian meun)
* Old High German muniwa, munuwa, munewa (modern German Münne (“minnow”))
* Latin mēna (“small sea-fish”)

cog

Most minnows are small fish with cycloid scales, soft rays supporting their fins, and toothless jaws. Some possess barbels on their upper jaw, and many species develop nuptial tubercles during the breeding season. […] Minnows are arguably the most difficult group of freshwater fishes to identify, in part because they are often small and thus the characters distinguishing them are correspondingly small.

2004, Robert G. Werner, “Carps and Minnows: Family Cyprinidae”, in Freshwater Fishes of the Northeastern United States: A Field Guide, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, →ISBN, page 74:

Phoxinus phoxinus
Phoxinus phoxinus#Translingual

The common minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus), a small freshwater fish of the carp family Cyprinidae which has a green back with black elongated blotches, commonly swimming in large shoals.

Chiefly with a qualifying word: any of a number of other (small) fish from the family Cyprinidae; also (chiefly US), other small (usually freshwater) fish from other families.

karppi

any of a number of other (small) fish from the family Cyprinidae; other small (usually freshwater) fish from other families

galaxiid

(Australia, New Zealand) Synonym of galaxiid (“any member of the family Galaxiidae of mostly small freshwater fish of the Southern Hemisphere”); specifically, the common galaxias, inanga, or jollytail (Galaxias maculatus).

In quiet, sheltered places, where the water is clear but does not run too swiftly, the ‘minnie,’ as the stickleback is locally called, makes its nest by the bank. […] On these fibres the ova are deposited, and they are then either purposely partly covered with sand by the minnie, or else the particles that are brought down by the current gather over the bundle of fibres and conceal it, excepting one small spot.

1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter XIX, in Wild Life in a Southern County […], London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 356:

(British, regional) Synonym of stickleback (family Gasterosteidae).

I have obſerved, as I have ſat by a ſpout of vvater, vvhich decſends from a ſtone trough about tvvo feet into a ſtream belovv, at particular ſeaſons of the year, a great number of little fiſh called minums, or pinks, throvv themſelves about tvventy times their ovvn length out of the vvater, expecting to get into the trough above.

1794, Erasmus Darwin, “Sect. XVI. Of Instinct.”, in Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, paragraph 6, page 175:

I wonder King George is let venture down on this coast, where he might be snapped up in a moment like a minnow by a her'n, so near as we be to the field of Boney's vagaries!

1904, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, […], part first, London: Macmillan and Co.: New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, Act II, scene iv, page 74:

During the past week he had indulged in sundry sly purchases, […] They included […] a remarkable collection of fishing tackle, which the sporting-goods man had declared fitted to catch anything that swam, from a whale to a minnow.

1908, Edith Van Dyne [pseudonym: Lyman Frank Baum], “The Agent”, in Aunt Jane’s Nieces at Millville, Chicago, Ill.: The Reilly & Britton Co., →OCLC, page 23:


minnow

en-verb

minnow (third-person singular simple present minnows, present participle minnowing, simple past and past participle minnowed)

minnows (present singular third-person)
minnowing (participle present)
minnowed (participle past)
minnowed (past)

To fish for minnows (noun sense 1 and subsenses).


herring

From Middle English hering, from Old English hǣring, from Proto-West Germanic *hāring (“herring”), further etymology unknown. Possibly derived from Proto-Germanic *hērą (“hair”) + -ing, due to the similarity of their fine bones to hair. Cognate with Scots hering, haring (“herring”), Saterland Frisian Hiering, Häiring (“herring”), West Frisian hjerring (“herring”), Dutch haring (“herring”), German Low German Hereng, Hering (“herring”), German Hering (“herring”), Bavarian Haring (“herring”). Late Latin haringus (whence French hareng, etc.) is borrowed from Germanic.

Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

A type of small, oily fish of the genus Clupea, often used as food.

Fish similar to those in genus Clupea, many of those in the order Clupeiformes.


sweeper

From Middle English swepere, swepare, equivalent to sweep + -er. Cognate with Middle Low German swēpære, swēper (“broom for sweeping up debris”).


squalid

Numerous diet studies on squalids have shown that members of this family tend to feed mainly on teleosts and cephalopods[…]

2008, David A. Ebert, James A. Sulikowski, Biology of Skates, page 126:

(zoology) Any member of the family Squalidae of dogfish sharks.


kipper

From Old English cypera (“male salmon”), perhaps related to Old English coper (“reddish-brown metal”) (see copper), on resemblance of color. Another theory connects it to kip (“sharp, hooked lower jaw of the male salmon in breeding season”), from Middle English kippen (“to seize, snatch”), but OED doubts this.

inh

Kipper, I discovered, was airman's slang for a fishing boat. The chief function of this particular station was the escorting of convoys and fishing fleets, and the section which had the latter duty to perform was known as the ‘Kipper Patrol’.

Kipper-kites, aircraft engaged on convoy escort duties over the North Sea and usually giving protection to the fishing-vessels.

1943, J. L. Hunt, A. G. Pringle, Service Slang, page 42:

(military, RAF World War II code name) A patrol to protect fishing boats in the Irish and North Seas against attack from the air.


kipper

en-verb

kipper (third-person singular simple present kippers, present participle kippering, simple past and past participle kippered)

kippers (present singular third-person)
kippering (participle present)
kippered (participle past)
kippered (past)

There was kippered salmon, and Finnan haddocks, and a lamb's head, and a haggis[…]

1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 49, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:

(cooking) To prepare (a herring or similar fish) by splitting, salting, and smoking.


kipper

en-adj

kipper (comparative more kipper, superlative most kipper)

more kipper (comparative)
most kipper (superlative)

These were kipper salmon, and an acquaintance of mine living at Burton Rowbottom who was trolling for pike at Yoxall, near to King's Bromley, got a run, five years ago, and caught a beautiful salmon weighting 25 lbs.

1861, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Reports from Commissioners - Volume 23, page 523:

the milner of Brignall for that he doth usually keep in the back beck a fishlock in the river called Gill Beck, below his mill and the forebeck of another fishlock [sic] above the mill, whereby he taketh and destroyeth much fish, to wit —routs, at his pleasure, and taketh, etc. divers fish when they are kipper and out of season;

1888, Great Britain. Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace (North Riding of Yorkshire), John Christopher Atkinson, Quarter Sessions Records - Volume 6, page 43:

Walton next tells us that the he-salmon is usually bigger than the spawner; that he is more kipper and less able to endure a winter in the fresh water than she is, yet she is, at that time of looking less kipper and better, as watery and as bad meat.'

1898, Alfred Erskine Gathorne-Hardy, The Salmon, page 15:

Three weeks ago 25 per cent of the salmon running were kipper salmon.

1923, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, Journal. Appendix, page 17:

(fishing, especially of salmon) Out of season.


kipper

Short form of UKIP + -er, influenced by kipper, the type of fish.

(UK, informal, humorous, often with capital) A member or supporter of UKIP (UK Independence Party).


shoemaker

From Middle English shomaker, equivalent to shoe + maker. Compare Dutch schoenmaker, German Schuhmacher, Danish skomager.

He especially recommended the only shoemaker who, to his mind, had an idea of making a shoe; and Lucy had at least half-a-dozen pair made, fitted, and descanted upon, before he was satisfied that they did justice to the shape of her foot, which proved extremely good when it was properly chaussé.

1833, Arabella Sullivan, Recollections of a Chaperon, volume 1, London: Richard Bentley, page 229:

The diseases of shoemakers receive attention as well as the toxicology of shoepolish.

1911 October, W. R. D., “Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office, United States Army. Authors and Subjects. Second Series, Vol. XV. S—Skin Grafting. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910.)”, in American Journal of Insanity, volume LXVIII, number 2, page 327:

A fish, Elagatis pinnulatis, the runner.


parr

en-noun

parr (countable and uncountable, plural parrs or parr)

Compare Scottish Gaelic bradan (“salmon”).
For the salmon life stage, the word originates from the Middle English parren (“to enclose”), referring to the spots running along the side of the fish, resembling the bars of a fence.

Young salmon, at a stage between fry and smolt when they feed chiefly on invertebrates but cannot tolerate saltwater.


black jack

black jack (countable and uncountable, plural black jacks)

A beggartick (Bidens spp., family of Asteraceae)

There is a sort of black caterpillar called a black jack, which is seldom seen; but when they do come, they make terrible havock.

1807, Richard Parkinson, The Experienced Farmer, Enlarged and Improved, page 370:

(obsolete) The larva of a turnip sawfly (Athalia rosae)


whiff

en-verb

whiff (third-person singular simple present whiffs, present participle whiffing, simple past and past participle whiffed)

whiffs (present singular third-person)
whiffing (participle present)
whiffed (participle past)
whiffed (past)

The noun is possibly:
* partly a variant of Middle English wef, weffe (“bad smell, stench, stink; exhalation; vapour; tendency of something to go bad (?)”) [and other forms], possibly a variant of either:
** waf, waif, waife (“odour, scent”), possibly from waven (“to move to and fro, sway, wave; to stray, wander; to move in a weaving manner; (figuratively) to hesitate, vacillate”), from Old English wafian (“to wave”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”); or
** wef (“a blow, stroke”), from weven (“to travel, wander; to move to and fro, flutter, waver; to blow something away, waft; to cause something to move; to fall; to cut deeply; to sever; to give up, yield; to give deference to; to avoid; to afflict, trouble; to beckon, signal”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Old English wefan (“to weave”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”)), or from wǣfan (see bewǣfan, ymbwǣfan); and
* partly onomatopoeic.
Noun sense 6 (“name of a number of flatfish”) is possibly derived from sense 1 (“brief, gentle breeze; a light gust of air”), sense 4 (“small quantity of cloud, smoke, vapour, etc.”), and other such senses.
The verb and adjective are derived from the noun. Verb sense 2.6 (“to catch fish by dragging a handline near the surface of the water from a moving boat”) is possibly derived from sense 1.1 (“to carry or convey (something) by, or as by, a whiff or puff of air”), sense 2.2 (“to be carried, or move as if carried, by a puff of air”), and other such senses.
The interjection is derived from noun sense 7.4 (“a sound like that of air passing through a small opening; a short or soft whistle”).

inh

(fishing) To catch fish by dragging a handline near the surface of the water from a moving boat.


whitebait

en-noun

whitebait (countable and uncountable, plural whitebaits)

The young of various species of fish, especially herrings, sprats or smelts

Food prepared from such fish, often deep fried and served as a starter or snack.


whitebait

en-verb

whitebait (third-person singular simple present whitebaits, present participle whitebaiting, simple past and past participle whitebaited)

whitebaits (present singular third-person)
whitebaiting (participle present)
whitebaited (participle past)
whitebaited (past)


whiting

From Middle English whityng, whytyng, perhaps an alteration of Old English hwītling (“whiting”), remodelled after white + -ing (diminutive suffix). Related to the colour white. Cognate with Dutch wijting (“whiting”), Old Norse hvítingr (“a kind of whale”).

Merlangius merlangus
Merlangius merlangus#Translingual

Any fish of many species that resemble Merlangius merlangus:

(US) Any of several marine fish found in North American coastal waters, including hakes (genus Merluccius), especially Merluccius bilinearis (silver hake).


cuckold

From Middle English cokolde, cokewold, cockewold, kukwald, kukeweld, from Old French cucuault; a compound of cucu (“cuckoo”) (some varieties of the cuckoo bird lay their eggs in another’s nest) and Old French -auld. Cucu is either a directly derived onomatopoeic derivative of the cuckoo's call, or from Latin cucūlus. Latin cucūlus is a compound of onomatopoeic cucu (compare Late Latin cucus) and the diminutive suffix -ulus.
Old French -auld is from Frankish *-wald (similar suffixes are used in some personal names within other Germanic languages as well; compare English Harold, for instance), a suffixal use of Frankish *wald (“wielder, ruler, leader”), from Proto-Germanic *waldaz (compare German Gewalt, from the related *waldą (“power, might”)), from *waldaną (“to rule”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂welh₁- (“to be strong; to rule”).
Appears in Middle English in noun form circa 1250 as cokewald. First known use of the verb form is 1589.

der

A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus triqueter.


pike

From Middle English pyke, pyk, pik, pike (“pike; sharp point, iron tip of a staff or spear, pointed toe of an item of footwear; sharp tool; mountain, peak”), from Old English pīc (“pointed object, pick axe”), and Middle French pique (“long thrusting weapon”), from Old French pic (“sharp point, spike”); both ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *pīk, from Proto-Germanic *pīkaz, *pīkō (“sharp point, pike, peak”), related to pick with a narrower meaning.
The word is cognate with Middle Dutch pecke, peke, picke (modern Dutch piek), German Pike, Norwegian pik, Danish pig, and possibly Old Irish pīk. It is a doublet of pique.
The diving or gymnastics position is probably from tapered appearance of the body when the position is executed.
The carnivorous freshwater fish is probably derived from the “sharp point, spike” senses, due to the fish’s pointed jaws.
The verb sense “to quit or back out of a promise” may be from the sense of taking up pilgrim's staff or pike and leaving on a pilgrimage; and compare Middle English pī̆ken (“to go, remove oneself”) and Old Danish pikke af (“to go away”).

cog

And now they begin to catch the pikes, and will ſhortly the trouts (pox on theſe miniſters), and I would fain know whether the floods were ever ſo high as to get over the holly bank or the river walk; if ſo, then all my pikes are gone; but I hope not.

1711 March 10, Jonathan Swift, J[ohn] Hawkesworth, “Letter LV”, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin: […], new edition, volume XIII, London: Printed for Charles Elliot, Edinburgh, published 1784, →OCLC, pages 275–276:

Lord Erskine soon afterwards came to Brighton, and told Mrs. Coutts, if she would give him a dinner he would provide the fish from his own pond. She agreed; and his present proved to be an overgrown pike, weighing between thirty and forty pounds, and so hideous in its appearance that no guest touched it, the mere sight of it being perfectly disagreeable to many.

1839 November 2, “Memoirs of Harriot, Duchess of St. Albans. By Mrs. Cornwell Baron Wilson, Author of the ‘Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis.’ 2 vols. 12mo. London 1839. Colburn.”, in The Literary Gazette; and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., number 1189, London: Printed by Moyes and Barclay, […]; published for the proprietors, at the Literary Gazette office, […], →OCLC, page 694, column 1:

If you fish for pike with a live-bait, snap tackle, or spinning, it should always be with the hooks attached to gimp, in consequence of the several rows of sharp teeth with which the pike is armed, and which enable it to bite gut in two.

1879 (indicated as 1880), [Charles Dickens Jr.], “Pike”, in Dickens’s Dictionary of the Thames: From Oxford to the Nore. … An Unconventional Handbook, London: Charles Dickens, […], →OCLC; republished as Dickens’s Dictionary of the Thames, from Its Source to the Nore. … An Unconventional Handbook, London: Macmillan & Co., […], 1883, →OCLC, page 164, column 2:

Any carnivorous freshwater fish of the genus Esox, especially the northern pike, Esox lucius.


bork

en-verb

bork (third-person singular simple present borks, present participle borking, simple past and past participle borked)

borks (present singular third-person)
borking (participle present)
borked (participle past)
borked (past)

A reference to the unsuccessful 1987 United States Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork (1927–2012); first appeared in print that same year.

In light of the current furor over trying to appoint a new Supreme Court justice, I would like to submit a new verb in the English language. Three forms would be "to bork," "borking," and "borked." This would describe the act of partisan political character assassination.

[1987 December 10, Kenneth H. Taylor, “[Voice of the People:] New verb”, in The San Bernardino County Sun, page 11, columns 3–4:

George [H. W.] Bush will almost certainly have an opportunity to nominate one or more justices. It would be a pity for all of us if they are subjected to the treatment accorded Robert Bork. Honest disagreement is one thing; "borking" is something else.

1988 November 30, William McCarthy, “Democrats ‘borked’”, in Chicago Tribune, archived from the original on 2017-10-19, page 20:

I feel strongly that he [Senator John Tower] is being borked. … The charges that have been leveled at him have all proved groundless, baseless.

1989 February 9, CBS This Morning, spoken by Malcolm Wallop:

In other words, I am intentionally borking the headline writer, for no other reason than to make my point with greater force.

1995, Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy, New York, N.Y.: Free Press, →ISBN, page xix:

After an eight-year hiatus, these groups are back on the scene, ready to implement an apparent vicious strategy of Borking any judicial nominee who happens to disagree with their view of how the world should be.

2002 February 7, Orrin G[rant] Hatch, “Statement of the Honorable Orrin Hatch, United States Senator, Utah [The Nomination of Charles W. Pickering to be United States Circuit Court Judge for the Fifth Circuit]”, in United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, archived from the original on 2008-09-21:

[Stephen L.] Carter believes that liberals seem to think that only conservatives "bork" and likewise conservatives seem to believe that only liberals "bork," but the unhappy truth is that everybody "borks".

2004, Joseph Michael Green, “Media Activity”, in Your Past and the Press!: Controversial Presidential Appointments: A Study Focusing on the Impact of Interest Groups and Media Activity on the Appointment Process, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, →ISBN, page 131:

Forcing their adversaries to bork nominees may, they may think, lead voters in the middle to think less well of liberals, enhancing the distaste for Washington politics that has helped conservatives gain political power.

2005, Mark [Victor] Tushnet, “A Supreme Court United?”, in A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 340:

Above all it discusses the best tactics to defeat a borking. Having been in the [Ronald] Reagan White House when Robert Bork was borked, I knew something about the subject, which was a huge help when the same borking guns were turned on my friend Judge [D. Brooks] Smith years later.

2006 October 30, Jeffrey Lord, “Borking Rush”, in American Spectator, archived from the original on 2017-10-17:

(transitive, intransitive, US politics, often derogatory) To defeat a person's appointment or election, judicial nomination, etc., through a concerted attack on the person's character, background, and philosophy.


bork

bork (third-person singular simple present borks, present participle borking, simple past borked, past participle borked or borken)

borks (present singular third-person)
borking (participle present)
borked (past)
borked (participle past)
borken (participle past)

Possibly derived from borken, an intentional misspelling of the word broken used in ironic or humorous contexts; or from the usage described under “Etymology 1” above.

The first time I tried the test machine that I got, I borked the configuration pretty badly (I.e., I inverted the interfaces among other things).

2001–2006, Oskar Andreasson, “Commercial Products Based on Linux, iptables and netfilter”, in Iptables Tutorial 1.2.2, [s.l.]: Oskar Andreasson, archived from the original on 2017-01-10, page 327:

Angie sat back and stared at the screen. Well, that screwed her up good and proper. Go to the brass with information that might put her in the slam … or go it solo and risk borking up the situation even worse than it was already.

2014 January, Naomi Kramer, Yesterday’s Cat: Episode 1: Before the Storm, [Los Gatos, Calif.]: Smashwords, →ISBN:

Even if I hadn't borked my own governor module, the emergency feed took priority, and it was chaotic, too, with the automated HubSystem wanting data and trying to send me data I didn't need yet and Mensah sending me telemetry from the hopper.

2017, Martha Wells, chapter 1, in All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries), New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN:

Microsoft's Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is Borking Razer Machines [title] […] As we pondered the question earlier today "we wonder if the Fall Creators Update of Windows 10 will bork anyone's machine", we had a feeling it wouldn't take long to find out. Razer, the high-end gaming manufacturer which is about to enter the gaming phone market, is finding that its products are being hit by the curse of Windows update.

2017 October 18, Chris Merriman, “Microsoft’s Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is Borking Razer Machines: Oh Microsoft … Not Again …”, in The Inquirer, archived from the original on 2017-10-19:

(transitive, slang) To misconfigure, break, or damage, especially a computer or other complex device.


bork

From the species name of Pagothenia borchgrevinki.

Near the water surface, Mayflower hunted for larger prey in the form of "borks." Pagothenia borchgrevinki "bork," for short—are buggy-eyed, dark-spotted fish with a Mohawk ridge of fins along the top. They live among the ice crystals formed by the platelet ice, hiding just below the frozen surface of the sea in -3°C (27°F) water.

2004, Terre M. Williams, The Hunter’s Breath: On Expedition with the Weddell Seals of the Antarctic, New York, N.Y.: M. Evans and Company, →ISBN, page 199:

On entering the Aquarium Building, I bumped into John Janssen, a biologist studying the behavior and physiology of Antarctic fish, and now a professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. John stood near a large circular seawater tank containing a school of "borks" (Pagothenia borchgrevinki), silvery, foot-long, trout-shaped Antarctic fish that feed on plankton. The majority of Antarctic fish live on the seafloor, but borks live in the water column, hiding from sea predators in the cracks and crevices of the sea ice.

2012, James McClintock, “Life Adrift: The Small Organisms Matter”, in Lost Antarctica: Adventures in a Disappearing Land, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN:

(informal) The bald notothen or bald rockcod (Pagothenia borchgrevinki), a species of cod icefish (Nototheniidae) native to the Southern Ocean.


chum

Originally American English, from the 1850s. Perhaps from Powhatan.

The whale’s floating body also forms a chum slick on the surface—a trail of blood, oil, and chunks of fat and flesh that might stretch for miles across the water. […] This chum slick is what attracts sharks from afar. Seabirds are drawn to it too.

2021 March 18, Sarah Zhang, “A Gruesome Feeding Frenzy in the Atlantic Ocean”, in The Atlantic:

Most of us have seen the movie “Jaws”. Sheriff Brody is complaining about being the lucky one in charge of creating a chum line out of the back of the boat. The bucket is full of an awful combination of fish parts and blood. As he ladles scoop after scoop into the ocean, clearly, it was ^([sic]) working…

2020, “The Best Methods to Go Chumming”, in Bait Binder, Coastal Baits, LLC, archived from the original on 2020-09-27:

(fishing, chiefly Canada, US) A mixture of (frequently rancid) fish parts and blood, dumped into the water as groundbait to attract predator fish, such as sharks.


chum

chum (third-person singular simple present chums, present participle chumming, simple past and past participle chummed)

chums (present singular third-person)
chumming (participle present)
chummed (participle past)
chummed (past)

He began to chum for sharks, using whale oil and chopped whale meat.

1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 176:

Small live baitfish are effective, and they will take bits of fresh cut fish when chummed strongly.

1996, Frank Sargeant, The Reef Fishing Book: A Complete Anglers Guide:

(fishing, transitive, intransitive) To cast chum into the water to attract fish.


chum

From Chinook Jargon tzum (“spotted, marked”), from Chinook.


guppy

→ Danish: gubbi

→ Dutch: guppie

Robert John Lechmere Guppy
guppy (disambiguation)

From a name mistakenly assigned, Girardinus guppii, after biologist Robert J. L. Guppy, to previously assigned Poecilia reticulata.

Throw that one back; it’s just a guppy!


lax

From Middle English lax, from Old English leax (“salmon”), from Proto-West Germanic *lahs (“salmon”), from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz (“salmon”), from Proto-Indo-European *laḱs- (“salmon, trout”). Cognate with Middle Dutch lacks, lachs, lasche (“salmon”), Middle Low German las (“salmon”), German Lachs (“salmon”), Norwegian laks (“salmon”), Danish laks (“salmon”), Swedish lax (“salmon”), Icelandic lax (“salmon”), Lithuanian lašišà (“salmon”), Latvian lasis, Russian лосо́сь (losósʹ, “salmon”), Albanian leshterik (“eel-grass”). Doublet of lox.

der

(now chiefly UK dialectal, Scotland) A salmon.


lax

en-adj

lax (comparative laxer, superlative laxest)

laxer (comparative)
laxest (superlative)

Borrowed from Latin laxus (“wide, roomy, loose”).

The rules are fairly lax, but you have to know which ones you can bend.

Society at that epoch was lenient, if not lax, in matters of the passions.

1886, John Addington Symonds, Philip Sidney:

Lenient and allowing for deviation; not strict.

մեղմ

not strict; lenient; allowing for deviation

The rope fell lax.

The Fleſh of this ſort of [cartilaginous] Fiſh being lax and ſpungy, and nothing ſo firm, ſolid and weighty as that of the bony Fiſhes, and there being a good quantity of Air contained in the Cavity of their Abdomen, they cannot ſink in the Water without letting in ſome of it by theſe Holes (the Orifices whereof are opened and ſhut at pleaſure by the help of Muſcles provided for that purpoſe) into the hollow of their Bellies, whereby they preponderate the Water and deſcend; […]

1701, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, […], 3rd edition, London: […] Sam[uel] Smith, and Benj[amin] Walford, […], →OCLC, part II, page 355:

Sreedharan and Mirsa (1973) reported that two lax panicle mutants, designated as nude panicle mutation, were obtained from the M₂ of two rice cultivars.

1979, “Genetical Studies on Dense and Lax Panicles In Rice”, in Japan. J. Breed., volume 29, number 2, page 151:

(linguistics) (of a vowel) Produced with relatively little constriction of the vocal tract.


flying fox

Australian Kriol: flain foks

Epalzeorhynchos kalopterus
Epalzeorhynchos kalopterus#Translingual

A cyprinid fish of species Epalzeorhynchos kalopterus.


bubbler

(US) A freshwater drum (Aplodinotus grunniens), of central North America.


asp

From Middle English aspe, from Old French aspe, from Latin aspis, aspidis (“asp, viper”), from Ancient Greek ἀσπίς (aspís, “shield; Egyptian cobra Naja haje”); compare Middle English aspide.

der

A venomous viper native to southwestern Europe (Vipera aspis).

A type of European fish (Aspius aspius).


asp

Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 (2009 asp 9)

Act of the Scottish Parliament
w:Act of the Scottish Parliament

(UK, law, in citation) Initialism of Act of the Scottish Parliament.


ballyhoo

en-verb

ballyhoo (third-person singular simple present ballyhoos, present participle ballyhooing, simple past and past participle ballyhooed)

ballyhoos (present singular third-person)
ballyhooing (participle present)
ballyhooed (participle past)
ballyhooed (past)

Unknown. Probably an expressive gibberish word.

sound-symbolic

expressive

Industry has picked up, railroads are carrying more freight, farm prices are better, but I am not going to indulge in issuing proclamations of over-enthusiastic assurance. We cannot ballyhoo ourselves back to prosperity.

1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat (7 May):

(transitive) To sensationalize or make grand claims.


ballyhoo

Certain species in family Hemiramphidae, inshore, surface-dwelling needlefish forming sizeable schools.


ballyhoo

Possibly from Spanish balahú (“schooner”).


bleg

Steve Thompson, on the Moonshadow, won last Wednesday’s WBA boat competition with the only fish of the night, a 1lb 8oz pouting (bleg)

4 July 2007, Jack Melton, “Fresh water gives shore anglers a clear problem”, in Sunderland Echo:

#*: Boats are taking ling to 18lb as well as codling to 5lbs and loads of pout whiting (blegs) on squid.

7 November 2007, “Sea Angling latest”, in Sunderland Echo:

The only report on boat fishing last week was on Tuesday when the Wanderer managed to get out and took about a dozen codling to three pounds plus a few blegs.

29 May 2008, “Sea Angling: Wear in doldrums, Tyne and Tees looking up”, in Sunderland Echo:

Saturday saw just three Seahan SAC juniors fishing for the J.T. Jacobs Cup, with two weighing in three coalies, a codling and a bleg.

10 December 2010, “Fishing: Pier marks look favourite for Big Open”, in Sunderland Echo:

Trisopterus luscus
Trisopterus luscus#Translingual

(Northumbria) A pouting (Trisopterus luscus).


brill

Possibly from Cornish brilli (“mackerel”), from brithelli, plural of brithel (“mackerel”), from brith (“spotted”), from Proto-Brythonic *briθ.

A type of flatfish, Scophthalmus rhombus.


red drum

a large red edible fish, Sciaenops ocellatus, also called channel bass or redfish.


redfish

Any of several species fish with red skin or flesh:

Any of genus Sebastes, or edible red rockfishs.

especially Sebastes norvegicus, found in North American waters, also called rosefish or ocean perch.

Sebastes norvegicus
Sebastes norvegicus#Translingual

A large red edible fish, Sciaenops ocellatus, also called channel bass or red drum.

Rhomboplites aurorubens, vermillion snapper.

Oncorhynchus nerka
Oncorhynchus nerka#Translingual


Dolly

Dolly Varden is the staple catch. To a point that, after two days, we find ourselves feeling guilty trying to shake them free from our fly or giving plenty of slack in the hope that another Dolly finds early freedom. […] Often the biggest challenge of hooking a big trout is avoiding Dollies.

2017 November–December, Dean Oelschig, “Kamchatka: 61 Hours from Jo'burg”, in The Mission: The Cult of Fly Fishing, number 6, pages 54–55:

Dolly Varden trout
Dolly Varden trout#English


grayling

From Middle English greylyng, equivalent to gray + -ling.

Other similar fish
Salmo salar (Atlantic salmon)


jew

The creeks gave us lots of food, too—yellow belly and jew, perch and eel.

1994, Rita Huggins & Jackie Huggins, Auntie Rita, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 151


jew

Pronunciation spelling
pronunciation spelling

Pronunciation spelling of d' you, representing colloquial English.

How jew do that? ("How'd you do that?")

Pronunciation spelling of 'd you, representing colloquial English.


nase

[…] “With respect to fishes,” says Professor Rütimeyer, “many species were found which are now the most abundant in our lakes and rivers.” The following are mentioned:— The salmon (Salmo salar, Lin.), the pike (Esox lucius. Lin.), the perch (Perca fluviatilis, Lin.), the carp (Cyprinus carpio, Lin.), the dace (Cyprinus leuciscus, Lin.), the chub (Cyprinus dobula, Nilss.), the nase (Chondrostoma nasus, [Lin.] Agass.), the burbot (Lita vulgaris, Jen.), and the rud (Scardinius erythrophthalmus, [Lin.] Bon.).

1885, Charles Rau, Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and North America. Archæological Researches in Nicaragua (Smithsonian contributions to knowledge; XXV), City of Washington: Smithsonian Institution, pages 45–46:

Any of the genus Chondrostoma of freshwater potamodromous fishes.

скобар

any of the genus Chondrostoma of freshwater potamodromous fishes


sardine

en-verb

sardine (third-person singular simple present sardines, present participle sardining, simple past and past participle sardined)

sardines (present singular third-person)
sardining (participle present)
sardined (participle past)
sardined (past)

Borrowed from French sardine (cognate with Spanish sardina, Italian sardina), Latin sardīna; from Ancient Greek σαρδίνη (sardínē).

No one on Monhegan says they saw them, but a man sardining says he saw it headed there, or at least some boat with people atop it.

1997, Peter Landesman, The raven: a novel:


coelacanth

From the New Latin genus name Coelacanthus, from Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow”) + ἄκανθα (ákantha, “spine”), referring to the hollow caudal fin rays of the first fossil specimen described and named by Louis Agassiz in 1839.

Among them were ancient relatives of the piranhas and those popular aquarium fish the tetras, along with garfish and freshwater coelacanths, known as mawsonids.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 32:

Any lobe-finned fish in the order Coelacanthiformes, thought until 1938 to have been extinct for 70 million years.

空棘魚 /空棘鱼

any lobe-finned fish in the order Coelacanthiformes


bathydemersal

A demersed fish living and/or feeding underwater below 200 meters (650 feet).


colorado

A fish of the species Lutjanus colorado, the Colorado snapper.


walleye

(plural "walleye" or "walleyes") A species of gamefish, Sander vitreus, native to the Northern U.S. and Canada with pale, reflective eyes.


angler

/ˈæŋ.ɡlə(ɹ)/

From Middle English angler, angleer, angeler, equivalent to angle + -er.

The angler lured a smaller fish into reach with the appendage on its head.

Lophius piscatorius
Lophius piscatorius#Translingual


blob

From Middle English *blob (“attested in blobby”). Possibly onomatopoeic, similarly to bleb and blubber.

inh

attested in <i class="Latn mention" lang="enm">blobby</i>

A small freshwater fish (Cottus bairdii); the miller's thumb.


diver

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-diver.wav

New Zealand sand diver
New Zealand sand diver


upokororo

A New Zealand fish, Prototroctes oxyrhynchus in the family Haplochitonidae, rather like a trout.


ahi

Borrowed from Hawaiian ʻahi (“yellowfin tuna”).


yellowfin tuna

en-noun

yellowfin tuna (countable and uncountable, plural yellowfin tunas)

The experiment in the first period targeted skipjack tuna and the second, yellowfin tuna.

1996, Gary T. Sakagawa, “Western Pacific Yellowfin Tuna Research Group Findings on Tuna Fisheries Interactions”, in Richard S. Shomura, Jacek Majkowski, Robert F. Harman, editors, Status of Interactions of Pacific Tuna Fisheries in 1995, page 310:

2009, Kurt M. Schaefer, Daniel W. Fuller, Barbara A. Block, Vertical Movements and Habitat Utilization of Skipjack (Katsuwonis pelamis), Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), and Bigeye (Thunnus obesus) Tunas in the Equatorial Eastern Pacific Ocean, Ascertained through Archival Tag Data,
During the daytime, skipjack and yellowfin tunas occasionally exhibited repetitive bounce-dive foraging behavior well below the thermocline to depths of the deep scattering layer, between 225 and 400 m.

Ohta and Kakuma (2005) reported that adult yellowfin tuna showed a similar diurnal vertical swimming pattern and dived to depths over 200 m.

2011, Yasushi Mitsunaga, Ricardo Barbaran, C. Endo, Kazuhiko Anraku, “Swimming Behavior of Juvenile Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares) Around Fish Aggragate^([sic]) Devices (F.A.D.S.) in the Philippines”, in Hubert J. Ceccaldi, editor, Global Change: Mankind-Marine Environment Interactions, page 123:

Thunnus albacares
Thunnus albacares#Translingual

(uncountable) An edible species of tuna, Thunnus albacares, found especially in tropical seas.


scomber

[…] the familiar name by which all scombers are known at Montpelier being the peis d’avril, or April fish. […] All times and tongues have agreed to call the first of these scombers by some name allusive to the warlike weapon carried in his mouth—viz., a sword, several feet in length, finely attenuated in front, and, to the dismay of the denizens of the deep, of a temper like that of its owner, not to be trusted or trifled with. […] The size and strength of these fish are as remarkable as their pugnacity; the power, as in most scombers, residing in the muscles moving the tail.

1853 March, “The Last of the Scombers”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume XLVII, number CCLXXIX, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], pages 260–262:

[…] large carongues and scombers are found in the Canarian seas, and the similarity of several species is most remarkable.

1871, E[ugène] Pégot-Ogier, translated by Frances Locock, “General Scientific Observations”, in The Fortunate Isles; or, The Archipelago of the Canaries. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley and Son, […], pages 230–231:

All of the Scombers are of the most highly organized order of fishes, most. of them being without air-bladders, being so adapted to their native element that they have no need of them.

1911 December, Charles F. Allen, “Fish and Fishing: A School of Tuna off Navesink”, in Sports Afield, volume XLVII, number 6, page 525, column 2:

The tail with its caudal fin, set vertically, is able to effect a rapid burst of speed which allows the fish to make a dash after its prey, but it cannot keep up this speed for long. At the rear it acts as a scull, beating the water first to right and then to left, and so pushing the body forward. Only some sharks and the large mackerel or scombers are capable of using this tool with an effect comparable to that attained by the cetaceans. […] The whole construction of these large scombers is designed to make of them, like fast ships, the greyhounds of the sea. […] The case of the tunny and the large scombers, whose massive bodies become considerably warmer when they are swimming, is an exception.

1935, Louis Roule, translated by Conrad Elphinstone, Fishes and Their Ways of Life, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., pages 24–25, 32, and 232:

Scombers are being fried or marinated in every house. […] Small scombers will pass through the wide mesh of the walls but become entangled in the inner meshes; […] Kolya and I were drawing up a net we had put out for scomber the evening before, at right angles to the shore. The catch was a thoroughly poor one. About a hundred scomber were tangled in the meshes of the net, five or six ruff, a few dozen golden-hued, fat little crucians and a very great deal of jellied, nacreous medusae, looking like enormous, colorless mushroom-heads, each with a multitude of stems.

1947, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney, “The Læstrygonians”, in The Portable Russian Reader: A Collection Newly Translated from Classical and Present-Day Authors, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, pages 409, 412, and 425:

The abundant ichthyoplankton in spring are contributed from larval and early juvenile species of highly commercial fishery concerns, such as scads and scombers. […] Scads and scombers are less abundant in the southern part of the Strait, relative to the northern Strait.

1994, Tai-Sheng Chiu, Kwang-Zong Chang, “Comparison of Ichthyoplankton Fauna in Northern Taiwan Strait During Winter and Spring”, in Acta Zoologica Taiwanica, volume 5, number 1, Taipei: National Taiwan University, pages 23–32:


gummy

Over there [the UK], gummies are called smooth hound and a six kilo fish would stop the nation.

2000, Paul Worsteling, Fishing Western Port, page 12:

2007, Bill Classon, Fishing Guide to Victoria′s Coastline, Australian Fishing Network, page 60,
Western Port is a great location to find gummies. […] Gummy sharks are one of the favoured species in Western Port and for good reason: they put up a strong fight and feed of fresh flake is pretty hard to beat.

This area of vast mudflats is right at the top of the port is home to some of the best gummy shark fishing around.[…]As the water drops, the feeding gummies drop off the banks and wait in the channels for food.

2008, Rex Hunt, Fishing Guide to Melbourne and Surrounds, page 44:


yellow jack

yellow jack (countable and uncountable, plural yellow jacks)

(countable) A fish of species Carangoides bartholomaei, of warm western Atlantic waters.


tinker

(US)

From Middle English tynkere, perhaps from Old English *tincere, from tin (“tin”) + *cere, as in bēocere (“beekeeper”).

if ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands

Any of various fish: chub mackerel, silverside, skate, or young mackerel about two years old.


borer

дървесен червей

a wood boring insect: the larval stage of the Anobium punctatum beetle

One of the many types of mollusc that bore into soft rock.


manta ray

From Spanish manta (“blanket”); according to Jorge Juan y Santacilia and Antonio de Ulloa, so called “for being broad and long like a quilt”.

My favorite are the manta rays. We watch them wing past. The have the largest brain of any fish, I remember.

2020, Jenny Offill, Weather, Granta Books (2021), page 181:

Any of several very large pelagic rays formerly of the genus Manta, now placed in genus Mobula, with winglike pectoral fins, a long tail, and two fins resembling horns that project from the head.

Antonio de Ulloa
Jorge Juan y Santacilia


tetra

From translingual Tetragonopterus, an obsolete genus that included these fish.

Any of numerous species of small freshwater fish of the South American family Characidae and West African family Alestidae, popular in home aquariums.


butterfly fish

butterfly fish (plural butterfly fish or butterfly fishes)

butterfly fish (plural)
butterfly fishes (plural)

Pantodon buchholzi on Wikipedia. - Pantodon buchholzi

Pterois volitans on Wikipedia. - Pterois volitans

Dactyloptena orientalis on Wikipedia. - Dactyloptena orientalis

Exocoetus volitans on Wikipedia. - Exocoetus volitans


cero

Corruption of Spanish sierra (“sawfish”).

A large scombroid food fish (Scomberomorus regalis) found chiefly in the West Indies.


lamprey

lamprey (countable and uncountable, plural lampreys)

From Middle English laumprei, from Old French lampreie (modern French lamproie), from Medieval Latin lampreda, possibly alteration of Late Latin lampetra (“lamprey”), whose further origin is unknown, though it is traditionally thought to be a combination of lambō (“I lick, lap”) + petra (“stone, rock”). Doublet of limpet, which derives from Latin.

Any long slender primitive eel-like freshwater and saltwater fish of the order Petromyzontiformes, having a sucking mouth with rasping teeth but no jaw.


lungfish

lungfish (plural lungfish or lungfishes)

air-breathing fish, of the class Dipnoi, that have four limblike appendages instead of fins


brown trout

Some brown trout live to be twenty years old. Browns are canny, the most wary of trout.

2001, Percival Everett, Erasure, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 67:

A nonmigratory freshwater trout of species Salmo trutta, with dark spotted skin, native to Europe and Asia.


rainbow trout

rainbow trout (countable and uncountable, plural rainbow trout or rainbow trouts)

rainbow trout (plural)
rainbow trouts (plural)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-rainbow trout.wav


brook trout

brook trout (plural brook trout or brook trouts)

brook trout (plural)
brook trouts (plural)

Salvelinus fontinalis
Salvelinus fontinalis#Translingual

A fish of the species Salvelinus fontinalis.


stingray

The device mimics a cell phone tower and gets the phone to connect to it. […] Once a signal is found, the stingray measures its strength and can provide a general location on the map.

2014, Catherine Nolan, Ashley M. Wilson, JD, The Audacity to Spy: How Government, Business, and Hackers Rob Us of Privacy, Technics Publications, →ISBN, page 74:

(US law enforcement) A device that simulates a cell tower, used to intercept cell phone communications.


menhaden

From Narragansett munnawhatteaug (“they fertilize”), influenced by poghaden.

uder

Divergence of the largescaled menhadens from the small-scaled menhadens resulted either from geographic isolation or different habitat preferences.

1970, Bulletin of the Florida State Museum: Biological sciences, Florida State Museum:

Any of several species of fish in the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium, used for fish meal, fish oil, fertilizer, and bait.

步魚 /步鱼

fish of the genera Brevoortia or Ethmidium


sleeper

(martial arts, wrestling) A sleeper hold.

A box-office bomb when it first came out, the film was a sleeper, becoming much more popular decades after being released.

For example, the [racehorse] trainer may have tipped a betting syndicate that he is about to unleash a sleeper […]

1968, Marvin B. Scott, The Racing Game, page 160:

Something that achieves unexpected success after an interval of time.

Any of family Odontobutidae of goby-like bottom-feeding freshwater fish.

rohmutokko

freshwater fish of the family Odontobutidae

(automotive, slang) An automobile which has been internally modified to excess, while retaining a mostly stock appearance in order to fool opponents in a drag race, or to avoid the attention of the police.


codfish

en-noun

codfish (countable and uncountable, plural codfish or codfishes)


tilapia

From translingual Tilapia, from Tswana tlhapi (“fish”).
The drag race slang usage is a reference to the comment by Gia Gunn on entering Ru Paul's Drag Race (season 6) "Just landed like fresh tilapia".

Well I dined last night with Scarface Ron
On tilapia fishcakes and fried black swan.

2006, Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, Bottom of the World:

Any of various edible fish, formerly species of the genus Tilapia, but now placed in other cichlid genera (such as Oreochromis), native to Africa and the Middle East but cultivated worldwide.


cichlid

Learned borrowing from New Latin Cichlidae.

lbor

Any of many tropical fish, of the family Cichlidae, popular as aquarium fish.


electric eel

Electrophorus electricus
Electrophorus electricus#Translingual

(strictly) Electrophorus electricus, a species of fish resembling an eel (though not related) that is capable of generating powerful electric shocks.

naʼashǫ́ʼii łóóʼ atsiniltłʼish ííłʼínígíí


lanternfish

en-noun

lanternfish (plural lanternfish or lanternfishes)

lanternfish (plural)
lanternfishes (plural)

Any of small, deep sea fish of the large family Myctophidae, named after their conspicuous use of bioluminescence.

peix llanterna

Any small, deep sea fish of family Myctophidae


anglerfish

anglerfish (countable and uncountable, plural anglerfish or anglerfishes)

anglerfish (plural)
anglerfishes (plural)

/ˈæŋɡlɚˌfɪʃ/

/ˈæŋɡləˌfɪʃ/

Any fish of the bony fish order Lophiiformes, which have an outgrowth they wiggle to lure and catch their prey.


moray

From Portuguese moreia, from Latin murēna (“sea eel, lamprey”), from Ancient Greek σμύραινα (smúraina), from σμύρος (smúros, “sea eel”).

Any of the large cosmopolitan carnivorous eels of the family Muraenidae.


tench

From Middle English tenche, from Old French tenche, from Late Latin tinca.

A species of freshwater game fish, Tinca tinca.


coalfish

coalfish (plural coalfishes or coalfish)

Pollachius virens
Pollachius virens#Translingual

Any of several blackish fish, especially Pollachius virens, a pollack, and Anoplopoma fimbria, sablefish.


pollock

From Middle English [Term?], perhaps from Scots podlok.

Either of two lean, white marine food fishes, of the genus Pollachius, in the cod family.


pollock

en-verb

pollock (third-person singular simple present pollocks, present participle pollocking, simple past and past participle pollocked)

pollocks (present singular third-person)
pollocking (participle present)
pollocked (participle past)
pollocked (past)


haddock

→ Irish: cadóg

→ Japanese: ハドック (hadokku)

→ Portuguese: hadoque

→ Scottish Gaelic: adag

→ Welsh: hadog

From Middle English haddok. Compare Anglo-Norman hadoc from Old French hadot, probably from an English source. Further origin uncertain, but hadot could have evolved from (h)adoux, (h)adoz, from adoub, from adouber, adober (“to prepare”), cognate with Italian addobbare (“to souse fish or meat”).
The spelling is usually regarded as a diminutive in -ok (see -ock).

cog

Melanogrammus aeglefinus
Melanogrammus aeglefinus#Translingual

A marine fish, Melanogrammus aeglefinus, of the North Atlantic, important as a food fish.


zander

Borrowed from German Zander, from a Slavic language, perhaps via Middle Low German sandāt. Pfeifer states that the first German attestation is East Central German czandas (in the Marienburger Treßlerbuch) circa 1400, which he derives from Pomeranian *sądač (compare Slovincian sãdzoc), from Proto-Slavic *sǫdakъ. Low Prussian forms include Zand, and other Slavic languages (e.g. Kashubian) have been considered as possible sources. Doublet of sandre.

Any fish of the genus Sander that live in freshwater.


turbot

From Middle English turbot, turbut, from Anglo-Norman turbut, Old French turbot, torbot, from Old Swedish tornbut, from törn (“thorn”) + but (“butt, flatfish”).

Eldridge closed the despatch-case with a snap and, rising briskly, walked down the corridor to his solitary table in the dining-car. Mulligatawny soup, poached turbot, roast leg of lamb—the usual railway dinner.

1931, Francis Beeding, “1/1”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps:

Any of various other flatfishes of family Scophthalmidae that are found in marine or brackish waters.

romb

any of various flatfishes of family Scophthalmidae


barracuda

en-noun

barracuda (plural barracuda or barracudas)

/ˌbæɹəˈkuːdə/

First attested in the 1670s, from Latin American Spanish barracuda, perhaps from a Cariban word.

Any large marine fish of the genus Sphyraena that have elongated bodies, a projecting lower jaw, displaying prominent fang-shaped teeth, and are aggressive predators.


catfish

catfish (countable and uncountable, plural catfish or catfishes)

From cat + fish. Likely so named for its prominent barbels like a cat's whiskers. Compare West Frisian katfisk (“catfish”), Dutch katvis (“catfish”). Compare also German Seekatze (“catfish”, literally “sea-cat”).

cog

“You don’t see catfish that big anymore, except in Chernobyl […] Nobody fishes there anymore, so the catfish thrive. They’ve gotten really enormous, some even twelve or thirteen feet long. They’re bottom-feeders, and apparently the mud still contains a lot of radioactive particles, but the catfish don’t seem to mind.”

2013, Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being, Canongate Books (2019), page 213:

Any fish of the order Siluriformes, mainly found in fresh water, lacking scales, and having barbels like whiskers around the mouth.

The meat of such a fish, popular in the Southern U.S. and Central Europe.


catfish

en-verb

catfish (third-person singular simple present catfishes, present participle catfishing, simple past and past participle catfished)

catfishes (present singular third-person)
catfishing (participle present)
catfished (participle past)
catfished (past)

I only use this rod for catfishing.


plaice

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-plaice.wav

Inherited from Middle English playce, plays, from Old French plaiz, from Late Latin platessa, from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “broad”). See platy-, plat and flat.

Pleuronectes platessa
Pleuronectes platessa#Translingual

Several similar marine flatfish of the righteye flounder family Pleuronectidae:

Pleuronectes platessa (European plaice), commonly found in the North Sea and Irish Sea, with smooth brown skin and red or orange spots.

Hippoglossoides platessoides (American plaice), of the North American Atlantic.

Pleuronectes quadrituberculatus (Alaska plaice), of the eastern North Pacific.

Acanthopsetta nadeshnyi (scale-eye plaice), of the western North Pacific.


blenny

From Latin blennius, blendius, from Ancient Greek βλεννός (blennós, “mucus, slime”) (whence Modern Greek βλέννα (vlénna)), because of its slimy coating. From Proto-Indo-European *mel- (“soft”).

der

A number of fish of similar appearance not closely related.

viviparous blenny (Zoarces viviparus, in family Zoarcidae)

viviparous blenny
viviparous blenny#English

Zoarces viviparus
Zoarces viviparus#Translingual


pilchard

1839, John Hookham Frere (translator), The Birds, lines 76–77, in Acharnians and two other plays
He longs occasionally for human diet,
His old Athenian fare: pilchards, for instance.

Any of various small oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae.

sardina

a cigar-shaped fish with a short dorsal fin and forked tail