ˈcramp-fish
[f. cramp n.1 + fish: cf. Du. kram-visch torpedo (Kilian).]
The electric ray or torpedo, also called cramp-ray and numb-fish.
| 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Torpigo, a crampfish, Torpedo. 1598 E. Guilpin Skial. (1878) 40 And like the Cramp-fish darts..His slie insinuating poysonous iuice. 1655 Culpepper Riverius i. v. 19 That Palsey which is caught by touching of the Torpedo or Cramp-fish. 1665 Sir T. Herbert Trav. (1677) 384 The Torpedo or Cramp-fish..by his frigidity he benums such fish as swim over or lodge near him, and so preys upon them. 1773 Grant in Phil. Trans. LXIV. 468 The general name by which they are known here, is the Numb or Cramp-fish. |
| fig. 1847 Emerson Repr. Men, Plato Wks. (Bohn) I. 304 He cannot even tell what it is—this Cramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him. |