tadpole1
(ˈtædpəʊl)
Also 5 taddepol, tadpolle, 6 tadpal, 7 tod-, toad-pole, toad-poll.
[f. ME. tāde, tadde, toad + (app.) poll n.1, head, roundhead. The latter element has been questioned, on the ground of the apparent inappropriateness of the name ‘toad-head’; but cf. the dialectal synonym pollhead or polehead (in Sc. and north. Eng. powheid), app. = head-head.]
1. The larva of a frog, toad, or other batrachian, from the time it leaves the egg until it loses its gills and tail. Chiefly applied in the early stage when the animal appears to consist simply of a round head with a tail.
| 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 569/7 Brucus, a taddepol. c 1475 Pict. Voc. ibid. 766/20 Hic lumbricus, a tadpolle. 1519 W. Horman Vulg. 277 b, This water is full of tadpollys. 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. ii. iii. Colonies 411 After a sweltring Day, some sultry showr Doth in the Marshes heaps of Tadpals pour. 1605 Shakes. Lear iii. iv. 135 Poore Tom, that eates the swimming Frog, the Toad, the Todpole. 1681 Hickeringill Char. Sham-Plotter Wks. 1716 I. 212 A Sham-Plotter..is the Spawn of a Papist, as a Toad-Poll of a Toad. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. IV. 47 The egg, or little black globe which produces the tadpole. 1886 Ruskin Præterita I. ix, 293 Without so much water anywhere as..a tadpole could wag his tail in. |
b. transf. and
fig. (In
quot. 1588, a black infant.)
| 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. iv. ii. 85 Ile broach the tadpole on my Rapiers poynt, Nurse giue it me, my sword shall soone dispatch it. 1881 Macm. Mag. XLIV. 475 Such pale tad⁓poles,..with listless ways, and few games. |
2. Sometimes applied to the tailed larva of a tunicate, the swimming tail of which is afterwards dropped or absorbed.
| 1880 E. R. Lankester Degeneration 42 The egg of Phallusia gives rise to a tadpole. 1909 W. Hatchett Jackson Let. to Editor, The ascidian or tunicate tadpole. |
3. A local name in the
U.S. of a water-fowl, the Hooded Merganser,
Lophodytes cucullatus, apparently from the size of its head, or from the patch of white on its crest.
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
tadpole form,
tadpole state, etc.;
tadpole-like adj.;
tadpole fish,
-hake, a ganoid fish of the North Atlantic,
Raniceps raninus.
| 1682 Dryden Medal 304 Frogs and Toads and all the Tadpole Train. 1682 S. Pordage Medal Rev. 30 The Tadpole-Priests, Shall lift above the Lords, their Priestly Crests. 1768 G. White Selborne xvii, Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state. 1832 Johnston in Proc. Berw. Nat. Club I. No. i. 7 Of the tadpole fish [Raniceps trifurcatus, Flem.], I had the pleasure of exhibiting to you a living specimen. 1847 Carpenter Zool. §980 The young animal [ascidian] has..a large tadpole-like tail. 1856 Gosse Marine Zool. ii. 27 At first it has a tadpole-like form. |
Hence (chiefly
nonce-wds.)
ˈtadpoledom,
ˈtadpolehood,
ˈtadpolism, the state of being a tadpole; also
fig.;
ˈtadpoleˌward adv. [see
-ward].
| 1863 Kingsley Let. 29 May, in Life (1879) II. 157 Little beggars an inch long, fresh from water and *tadpoledom. |
| 1891 C. L. Morgan Anim. Sk. 222 Little Froggies which have just emerged from *tadpole-hood. 1897 G. C. Bateman Vivarium 296 Many of the Batrachians, during a portion of their tadpolehood, are vegetable feeders. |
| 1897 Voice (N.Y.) 8 Apr. 3/1 Degeneration is involution through self *tadpoleward. |
| 1883 Baring-Gould J. Herring III. lix. 293 All previous existence would be *tadpolism. |