mackerel

== English == === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /ˈmæk(ə)ɹəl/ Hyphenation: mack‧e‧rel, mack‧erel Rhymes: -ækɹəl === Etymology 1 === From Middle English mackerell, macrell, macrelle, makarell, makerel, makerell, makerelle, makrel, makrell, makyrelle, from Old French maquerel. Further origin unknown. ==== Noun ==== mackerel (countable and uncountable, plural mackerel or mackerels) Certain smaller edible fish, principally true mackerel and Spanish mackerel in family Scombridae, often speckled, Typically Scomber scombrus in the British isles. 1982, Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Chapter 5, in Zami; Sister Outsider; Undersong, New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1993, p. 47,[2] “ […] if you ever so much as breathe a word about my stories, Sandman’s comin’ after you the very same minute to pluck out you eyes like a mackerel for soup.” A true mackerel, any fish of tribe Scombrini (Scomber spp., Rastrelliger spp.) Certain other similar small fish in families Carangidae, Gempylidae, and Hexagrammidae. (chiefly attributive, of clouds, the sky, etc) A regular pattern, similar to fish scales, of undulating small clouds with sky visible between them. a mackerel sky ===== Derived terms ===== ===== Descendants ===== → Sylheti: ꠝꠦꠇꠞꠥꠟ (mexrul) ===== Translations ===== ===== See also ===== scombral scombroid tuna ==== References ==== mackerel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia Scombridae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies Category:Scombridae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons === Etymology 2 === From Middle English makerel, maquerel, from Old French maquerel, from Middle Dutch makelare, makelaer (“broker”) (> makelaar (“broker, peddler”)). See also French maquereau. ==== Noun ==== mackerel (plural mackerels) (obsolete) A pimp; also, a bawd. 1483, William Caxton, Magnus Cato, quoted in James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, vol. 2, publ. by John Russell Smith (1847), page 536. […] nyghe his hows dwellyd a maquerel or bawde […] 1980, The Police Journal, Volume 53 (page 257) doi:10.1177/0032258X8005300305 (also available at Google books) NETTING MACKEREL: THE PIMP DETAIL 2006, Paul Crowley, Message-ID: <ciGug.11527$j7.319767@news.indigo.ie> in humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare [4] A procurer or a pimp is a broker (or broker-between), a mackerel, or a pandar; the last is not necessarily-and, indeed, not usually-a professional.