mackerel
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmæk(ə)ɹəl/
rhymes: -ækɹəl
Forms: form: mackerel
form: mackerels
Etymology: From Middle English mackerell, macrell, macrelle, makarell, makerel, makerell, makerelle, makrel, makrell, makyrelle, from Old French maquerel. Further origin unknown.
Senses: glosses: Certain smaller edible fish, principally true mackerel and Spanish mackerel in family Scombridae, often speckled,
examples: text: […] you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
ref: c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:
text: I am living fast, to see the Time, when a Book that misses its Tide, shall be neglected, as the Moon by Day, or like Mackarel a Week after the Season.
ref: 1704, [Jonathan Swift], A Tale of a Tub. […], London: […] John Nutt, […], →OCLC, page 215:
text: Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm. Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: He sometimes pinches the maids till their arms are as many colours as a mackerel’s back.
ref: 1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 6, in Lud-in-the-Mist, London: Millennium, published 2000, page 68:
text: 1982, Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Chapter 5, in Zami; Sister Outsider; Undersong, New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1993, p. 47,
“ […] if you ever so much as breathe a word about my stories, Sandman’s comin’ after you the very same minute to pluck out you eyes like a mackerel for soup.”
glosses: Certain smaller edible fish, principally true mackerel and Spanish mackerel in family Scombridae, often speckled,
typically Scomber scombrus in the British isles.
glosses: A true mackerel, any fish of tribe Scombrini (Scomber spp., Rastrelliger spp.)
glosses: Certain other similar small fish in families Carangidae, Gempylidae, and Hexagrammidae.
examples: text: a mackerel sky
text: MACKEREL CLOUDS.- Mackerel scales and mares' tails / Make lofty ships carry low sails.
ref: 1892, George Scott, Scott's New Coast Pilot for the Lakes: Containing a Complete List of All the Lights and Light-houses, Fog Signals and Buoys on Both the American and Canadian Shores, page 277:
text: Mackerel clouds in sky, Expect more wet than dry. A mackerel sky, Not twenty-four hours dry.
ref: 1908, The Journal of Geography, page 201:
text: Mackerel in the sky, three days dry. […] Mackerel sky, mackerel sky - never long wet, never long dry.
ref: 2018 May 27, Nick Wigram, Get Off of My Cloud, Nick Wigram:
qualifier: the sky; etc; the sky; etc
glosses: A regular pattern, similar to fish scales, of undulating small clouds with sky visible between them.
raw_tags: of clouds
Derived terms: taxonomic: Pleurogrammus spp.
word: Atka mackerel
taxonomic: Scomber scombrus
word: Atlantic mackerel
taxonomic: Gasterochisma melampus
word: butterfly mackerel
taxonomic: Scomberomorus regalis
word: cero mackerel
taxonomic: Scomber japonicus
word: chub mackerel
word: cold as a mackerel
taxonomic: Scomber scombrus
word: common mackerel
word: dead as a mackerel
taxonomic: Grammatorcynus bilineatus
word: double-lined mackerel
word: holy mackerel
word: horse mackerel
taxonomic: Trachurus spp.
word: jack mackerel
taxonomic: Scomberomorus cavalla
word: king mackerel
taxonomic: Jynx torquilla
word: mackerel bird
word: mackerel breeze
taxonomic: Puffinus puffinus
word: mackerel cock
word: mackereler
word: mackerel gale
taxonomic: Sterninae spp.
word: mackerel gull
taxonomic: Champsocephalus gunnari
word: mackerel icefish
word: mackerelled
word: mackerelling
word: mackerelly
taxonomic: Gadidae spp.
word: mackerel midge
word: mackerel mint
word: mackerel pike
taxonomic: Scomberesocidae spp.
word: mackerel-pike
taxonomic: Decapterus macarellus
word: mackerel scad
taxonomic: Decapterus spp.
word: mackerel shad
taxonomic: Lamniformes spp.
word: mackerel shark
word: mackerel sky
word: mackerel sky and mare's-tails make lofty ships carry low sails
word: mackerel sky and mare's-tails make tall ships carry low sails
word: mackerel snapper
taxonomic: Euthynnus alletteratus
word: mackerel tuna
taxonomic: Gempylidae spp.
word: snake mackerel
alt: Scomberomorini spp.
word: Spanish mackerel
word: stink like a mackerel
word: stink like a mackerel in the moonlight
word: stink like a mackerel in the sun
word: throw a sprat to catch a mackerel
taxonomic: Scomber colias
word: tinker mackerel
taxonomic: Caranx crysos
word: yellow mackerel
Related terms: scombral
scombroid
tuna