Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fish, such as a cod or haddock, cured by being split and air-dried without salt.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Certain gadoid fish which are cured by splitting and drying hard without salt, as cod, ling, hake, haddock, torsk, or cusk.
  • noun In fish-culture, fish adapted or used for stocking rivers, ponds, lakes, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Salted and dried fish, especially codfish, hake, ling, and torsk; also, codfish dried without being salted.
  • noun (Zoöl.) Young fresh cod.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A cod (or similar fish) having been cut open and cured in the open air without salt.
  • noun South Africa The South African hake.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fish cured by being split and air-dried without salt

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English stokfish, translation of Middle Dutch stocvisch : stoc, tree limb (perhaps from its being dried on wooden racks) + vische, fish.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle Low German / Middle Dutch stokvisch ("stick fish"), since the fish were dried in the wind on wooden frames, as still happens today in Lofoten, Norway.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Afrikaans, from Dutch stokvis.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word stockfish.

Examples

  • In language hardly official, the Marquise threatens to make stockfish, that is her phrase, of whosoever has had a hand in either the abduction or the concealment of the missing lady. "

    The Golden Dog William Kirby 1861

  • Most are engaged in producing traditional whitefish products, for example dried cod, salted fish, and stockfish.

    Fisheries and aquaculture in the Northeast Atlantic (Barents and Norwegian Seas) 2009

  • We were all thoroughly sick of stockfish, sprats in mustard, and herrings in pickle.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • We had bales of stockfish, everyone did, and everyone loathed it.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • We were all thoroughly sick of stockfish, sprats in mustard, and herrings in pickle.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • We were all thoroughly sick of stockfish, sprats in mustard, and herrings in pickle.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • We had bales of stockfish, everyone did, and everyone loathed it.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • We had bales of stockfish, everyone did, and everyone loathed it.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • A new study shows that cod were exploited in the Middle Ages from many, often distant, fishing grounds, with an international trade in dried stockfish.

    Medieval Cod bones and European trade routes 2008

  • Now we have another reason to boycott their stockfish...

    Norway: This is war 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.