sheat-fish
(ˈʃiːtfɪʃ)
Also sheath-fish (ˈʃiːθ-), sheet-.
[The earlier form sheath-fish is prob. f. sheath1, after the G. schaid(e, scheid(e masc. (now scheiden masc.; OHG. had sceida fem.), which Gesner De Piscibus (1558) regarded as cogn. w. scheide fem. sheath n., supposing that the fish was named from some resemblance in shape to a cavalry scabbard. The later sheat-fish seems to be ad. G. scheidfisch (f. scheid: see above), though that compound appears in Grimm only with a reference to Frisch (1741). The etymology of G. scheid(e, scheiden is unknown.]
a. A large fresh-water fish, Silurus glanis, common in the Danube and other rivers of eastern Europe.
| α 1589 Rider Bibl. Scholast. 1723 A sheath fish, or whale of the river, stella. 1601 Holland Pliny ix. li. I. 266 The male sheath-fish or riuer-whale Silurus. 1815 Anne Plumptre tr. Lichtenstein's Trav. S. Africa II. 343 A species nearly allied to our silurus glanis, or sheath-fish, which in the systema naturæ is given as an inhabitant of the Nile. |
| β 1611 Cotgr., Silure, the rauening sheat fish, or whall of the riuer. a 1672 Willughby Hist. Pisc. (1686) 128 Silurus Rondeletii... The Sheat-fish. 1796 Phil. Trans. LXXXVII. 26 At Aleppo, the gall of the sheet fish, Silurus Glanis..was in particular request. 1853 Kingsley Hypatia x, A mighty sheat-fish smokes upon the festive board. 1881 E. E. Frewer tr. Holub's 7 Yrs. S. Africa II. i. 30, I succeeded in hooking three large sheatfish. |
b. In extended use, as a name for the order
Siluridæ or for a subdivision of it which includes the genus
Silurus. (See
quots.)
| α 1881 Günther in Encycl. Brit. XII. 649/2 The electric sheath-fish of tropical Africa (Malapterurus). |
| β 1851 Gosse Nat. Hist., Fishes 227 Siluridæ. (Sheat-fishes.) 1854 A. Adams, etc. Man. Nat. Hist. 106 Mailed Sheat-Fishes (Loricariidæ). Ibid., Naked Sheat-Fishes (Pimelodidæ). Ibid. 107 True Sheat-Fishes (Siluridæ) [etc.]. 1883 F. Day Indian Fish 31 Of the sheat-fish, or scaleless siluroids, we have twenty-six genera. |