mossbunker
(ˈmɒsbʌŋkə(r))
Forms: 8 mosbanker, 8–9 mossbonker, 9 mossbanker; 9 (in Du. form) marshbanker; (in mod. Dicts. massbanker, marshbunker, morsebonker, morsbunker, mousebunker); 9– mossbunker.
[a. Du. marsbanker (formerly also masbank), of obscure etymology.]
The menhaden.
| 1792 [see menhaden]. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. I. 222 Mossbonker. 1809 W. Irving Knickerb. (1861) 264 A huge moss-bonker. 1868 W. Whitman Poems, Salut au monde 145, I see ten fishermen waiting—they discover now a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the joined sein-ends in the water. 1880 Günther Fishes 659 The ‘Mossbanker’, common on the Atlantic coasts of the United States. 1884 Goode, etc. Nat. Hist. Aquatic Anim. I. 569 This name [Mossbunker]..[has] evidently been transferred from the ‘Scad’, or ‘Horse Mackerel’..known to the Hollanders as the ‘Marshbanker’ [1888 ― Amer. Fishes 386 ‘Marsbanker’]. New Jersey uses the New York name with its local variations, such as ‘Bunker’ and ‘Marshbanker’. |
| attrib. 1881 N.Y. Times in Goode Amer. Fishes (1888) 112 These smacks are engaged in the menhaden or ‘mossbunker’ fishery. |