▪ I. ˈale-wife1
[ale- 4 + wife in sense of woman.]
A woman that keeps an ale-house.
| 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. ix. 330 Þe best and brounest · þat brewesters [v.r. c 1400 ale-wiuys] sellen. a 1500 Carp. Tools 43 in Hazl. E.P.P. I. 81 He wones to nyȝe the ale-wyffe. 1587 Harrison Engl. i. ii. vi. 161 Such slights also have the alewives for the utterance of this drinke. 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. Ind. ii. 23 Aske Marrian Hacket the fat Ale⁓wife of Wincot, if shee know me not. 1663 Flagel., O. Cromwell (1672) 17 The Ale-wives of Huntingdon..when they saw him coming would use to cry out to one another, shut up your Dores. 1789 Mrs. Piozzi France & It. I. 17 A flat silver ring on her finger, like our ale-wives. 1865 T. Wright Caricature & Grot. viii. 139 The ale-wife is pouring her liquor from her jug. |
▪ II. ale-wife2
(ˈeɪlwaɪf)
Pl. ale-wives.
[Prob. a transf. use of prec., with reference to the large belly of the fish.]
An American fish (Clupea serrata) closely allied to the herring.
| 1633 in New Plymouth Col. Rec. (1855) I. 17 Whereas God, by his providence, hath cast the fish called alewiues or herrings in the middest of the place. 1634 in Mass. Col. Rec. (1853) I. 114 [He] is to sell the Alewyves hee takes there at 5 s. the thousand. 1652 J. Eliot Let. 28 Feb. in Strength out of Weakness 5 Where the Fish we call Alewives come, there we built a Bridge. 1670 S. Clarke Acc. Plantations 37 Big-bellied Alewives, Mackrils richly clad With Rainbow colours. 1847 in Craig. 1852 M. H. Perley Rep. Fish. N. Brunsw. (ed. 2) 208 The ale⁓wive appears in great quantities in the Chesapeake, in March. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. 15 The refuse of the gasworks..supplied him [the crow] with dead alewives in abundance. |