whitefish
(ˈhwaɪtfɪʃ)
Also white-fish, white fish.
[Cf. Du. witvisch bleak, LG. witfisk, med.L. albus piscis.]
1. A general name for fishes of a white or light colour (esp. those having silvery scales without spots or ornamental colours), as cod, haddock, whiting, etc.
| 1461–2 in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 301 Samon, heringe, hake, whitfishe. 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) I. p. xxxvii, This firth is richt plentuus of coclis, osteris [etc.]..with gret plente of quhit fische. 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. ix. 131 Those White-fish that in her [sc. Lin] doe wondrously abound, Are neuer seene in him [sc. Dee]; nor are his Salmons found At any time in her. 1701 [W. Paterson] Counc. Trade (1751) 28 The vast numbers of herring and white-fish in all our channels, inletts and lakes. 1787 Best Angling (ed. 2) 133 Carshalton-river, abounding with trouts and other white fishes. 1865 Kingsley Herew. xxxi, The great pike..sending the whitefish flying in shoals. |
2. The Great Sturgeon (
= beluga 1); the White Whale (
= beluga 2).
| 1662 J. Davies tr. Olearius' Voy. Ambass. 165 A Fisherman..took a Bieluga or white-fish, which was above eight foot long, and above four broad. 1698 A. Brand Emb. fr. Muscovy 31 The Oby..abounds in..Sturgeon, Whitefish or Belluja's, and others. 1743 Phil. Trans. XLII. 611 The White-fish are likewise in these Seas, like a Whale, but without Fins on the Back. 1792 G. Cartwright Jrnl. Labrador III. p. x, Whitefish, a fish of the Porpoise kind. |
3. A common name for the fishes of the genus
Coregonus, of the family
Salmonidæ, found in the lakes of North America, and valued as food.
| 1748 [see tittymeg]. 1778 T. Hutchins Top. Descr. Virginia 47 Lake Erie has a great variety of fine fish, such as Sturgeon, Eel, White Fish. 1873 T. Gill Catal. Fishes E. Coast N. Amer. 29 Pomatomus saltatrix... Blue-fish..; white-fish and snap-mackerel (young). Ibid. 33 Brevoortia menhaden..white-fish (Saybrook to Milford, Connecticut). 1883 Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4) 160 a The famous Corregonus albus, or White Fish, of Canadian lakes. |
Hence
white fisher, one who catches white fish (sense 1);
white fishery,
fishing, the occupation of catching white fish.
| 1528 Extr. Aberd. Reg. (1844) I. 121 All the *quhit fischaris..consentit to gif to thair chaplane..xii d. in the yeir. 1601 Ibid. (1848) II. 217 Willeame Brabner, Patrik Huchoun, and James Symsoun, quhytfischeris in Futtie. 1772 Newspaper Cutting (Douce Prints S. 9. 109) Died at Montrose,..Thomas Milne, white-fisher, aged 100 years. 1892 Daily News 26 Mar. 3/3 The Committee have devised a modus vivendi by which the rights of the salmon fishers have been protected, and at the same time the rights of the white fishers have been established. |
| 1791 T. Newte Tour Eng. & Scot. 168 Small vessels [employed] in the *White Fisheries. 1840 D. P. Blaine Encycl. Rur. Sports viii. ii. 955 The British fisheries, which, besides the herring, embrace the cod, the ling, haddock, skate, halibut, turbot, &c. are collectively termed the white fishery. |
| 1600 Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 341/1 Cum lie stelyair, halecum et salmonum piscationibus et lie *quhite-fischingis. 1703 J. Brand Descr. Orkney, etc. 79 Excelling any other place of the King of Brittan's Dominions for Herring, White and Grey Fishing. 1892 Rep. Solway White Fish. Comm., The white-fishing industry..on the Scottish shores of the Solway Firth. |