▪ I. conger1
(ˈkɒŋgə(r))
Forms: 4 kunger, 5–7 cunger, congre, (5 cungur, -gyre, -gger, congur(e, -ggyre, 6 congar, coonger), 6– conger.
[a. OF. congre:—L. congr-um (conger), ad. Gr. γόγγρος, all in same sense.]
1. A large species of eel living in salt water and attaining a length of from six to ten feet; it is caught for food, being common on the coasts of Britain and other European countries, but rare along the American coast of the Atlantic; the sea-eel.
| [1213 Rot. Chart. (Rolls) 194 Habeant totam emptionem mulvellorum et congruorum..per totam Corn[ubiam].] c 1300 Sat. People Kildare ii. in E.E.P. (1862) 153 Mani grete kunger swimmeþ abute þi fete. c 1325 Coer de L. 3515 Fysch, flesch, salmoun and cungyr Off us non schal dye for hungyr. 1398 Trevisa Barth. de P.R. xiii. xxvi. (1495) 462 The Congre hath many wyles and is wytte and wyly of getynge of meete. c 1425 Eng. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 641/38 Hic congruus, a conggyre. 14.. Black Bk. of Admiralty II. 103 Also of purpais, samoun, cungger, and turbut. 1516 in Lodge Illust. Brit. Hist. (1791) I. 13, I have sent by this berer..x pasties of congars. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 266 Eates Conger and Fennell. 1602 Marston Antonio's Rev. ii. i, If..a mermaid be half a fish and halfe cunger. 1676 Walton Angler i. xiii. (1791) 185 The mighty Conger, taken often in Severn about Gloucester. 1791 Wolcott (P. Pindar) Rights of Kings Wks. 1812 II. 426 And snatch a wriggling Conger from the flood. 1881 F. Day Fishes Gt. Brit. II. 251 The conger is very sensible to atmospheric changes. |
2. Applied in abuse to a man.
| 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 58 Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself! |
3. Comb. conger-doust, -douce, dial. [doust dust, powder], conger dried and powdered for making fish soup; conger-head, a term of abuse.
| 1630 Dekker 2nd Pt. Honest Wh. Wks. 1873 II. 140 She nibbled but wud not swallow the hooke, because the Cunger-head her husband was by. 1808 Polwhele Cornish Voc., Conger-dousts. 1865 Couch Brit. Fishes IV. 345. 1880 E. Cornwall Gloss. s.v., Conger-doust, Up to the beginning of the present century, a large trade existed between Cornwall and Catholic countries in Conger-douce. |
▪ II. conger3, cunger
(ˈkʌŋgə(r))
A dialectal name of the cucumber in the Midland counties of England.
| 1854 A. E. Baker Northamptonsh. Gloss. I. 140 So general is this word that an eminent seedsman informs me that cottagers and market gardeners..usually ask for conger seed. [1891 It is now less common, though still in use from S. Lincolnshire to Warwickshire.] |