ˈhound-fish, ˈhoundfish
† 1. A name given to various small sharks; = dogfish. Obs.
| c 1386 Chaucer Merch. T. 581 With thilke brustles of his berd vnsofte Lyk to the skyn of houndfyssh sharpe as brere. ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 1084 Harske as a hunde-fisch..So was þe hyde of þat hulke hally al over! c 1440 Promp. Parv. 250/2 Hownde fyshe, canis marinus. 1513 Bk. Keruynge in Babees Bk. (1868) 282 Mortrus of houndes fysshe. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. ii. v. §3. 132 The Greater and the Lesser Hound Fish. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Hound-Fish,..two different fish of the squalus kind, the one called the smooth, and the other the prickly Hound. 18.. H. Miller Lett. on Herring Fish., The..hun-fish..a voracious animal of the shark species. |
b. attrib., as houndfish-skin.
| 1449–50 in Willis & Clark Cambridge (1886) I. 402, j hownd⁓fissch skyn..ad officium carpentariorum. 1545 R. Ascham Toxoph. ii. (Arb.) 161 A Hunfysh-skin and a cloth. |
2. Applied to other species of fish: a. Species of garfish of genus Tylosurus, such as the T. jonesi (Bermuda) and T. acus; b. blue hound-fish, a former name in Massachusetts of Pomatomus saltatrix, now called the Bluefish; c. speckled hound-fish, a former name of the Spanish mackerel.
| 1672 J. Josselyn New Eng. Rarities 24 Blew Fish or Hound Fish, two kinds, speckled Hound Fish, and blew Hound Fish called Horse Fish. |