ˈhogback, hog-back
Also (esp. in sense 2 a) hog's back.
1. a. A back like that of a hog.
| 1661 Walton Angler i. iv. (ed. 3) 72 Note that a hog back and a little head to any fish, either Trout, Salmon or other fish, is a sign that that fish is in season. 1758 Descr. Thames 190 The Bream has a sharp Hogback. |
b. The sunfish, a member of the genus Lepomis. U.S.
| 1832 Coll. New H. Hist. Soc. III. 86 The hogback or sunfish, as some call it, is a very attracting thing. It is about as large as the perch. |
c. Any fish with a hog-like back.
| 1893 in Funk's Stand. Dict. 1923 Chambers's Jrnl. Dec. 791/2 Bill, said the latter, the hog-back run is come. |
2. Something shaped like a hog's back. a. A sharply crested hill-ridge, steep on each side and sloping gradually at each end; a steep ridge of upheaval.
[Cf. The Hog's-back, a hill near Godalming.]
| α 1840 J. P. Kennedy Quodlibet 26 The farm where he now lives at the foot of the Hogback. 1847 in 31st Congress 1 Sess. H.R. Ex. Doc. No. 5. ii. 731 The banks [of a river]..worn in some places into hog-backs. 1888 Harper's Mag. Nov. 860/1, I pushed forward across deep gulches, over high peaks and ‘hog-backs’. 1896 Advance (Chicago) 1 Oct. 433 The dry knobs, or hog-backs, where the prairie breaks down to the streams. |
| β 1800 in Vermont Hist. Soc. Proc. 1920–21 (1921) 168 Whats call'd the hogs back is a ridge of mountains on the north side (of the Onion river, Vt.). 1827 J. F. Cooper Red Rover i, The hog's back over which the water pitches. 1834 Sir W. Napier Penins. War xiii. ii. (Rtldg.) II. 209 A rugged hill..joined by a hog's-back ridge to the..mountain spine. 1862 H. Marryat Year in Sweden II. 388 Our way runs along a hogsback, till we reach the lake of Fur. 1863 G. T. Lowth Wand. in West. France 216 There is a long elevated line of hill, a hog's-back, running from south to north. 1973 Guardian 23 Jan. 13/1 The Prime Minister..will be there, in his retreat on the hogs-back of the Delimara peninsula. |
b. Coal-mining. (See quots.)
| 1867 W. W. Smyth Coal & Coal-mining 27 Another sort of thinning is where the floor rises..sharply, in a ‘hog-back’ or saddle. 1883 Gresley Gloss. Coal-mining, Hog-back, sharply rising of the floor of a coal seam. |
c. N.Z. (See quot. 1940.)
| 1933 N.Z. Alpine Jrnl. V. xx. 180 Dark clouds..a bevy of ‘hog-backs’. Ibid. 235 A ‘hog's back’ warned that further storms were brewing. 1940 W. S. Gilkison Peaks, Packs & Mountain Tracks 24 He showed me a hogsback... Term applied to a particularly unwelcome cloud only too well-known to climbers, and almost invariably heralding a north-west storm. |
3. A hog-backed tombstone.
| 1889 R. S. Ferguson Carlisle iv. 54 The coped tombstones, commonly called Saxon hogbacks. |
4. = hog-frame.
| 1886 Waterbury (Conn.) American 2 Apr. (Cent.), The strength of her hull and the solidity of her hog-back. |