tomcodn.
/ˈtɒmkɒd/, U.S. /ˈtɑmˌkɑd/ 1.
a. Originally North American. A small fish of the western North Atlantic, Microgadus tomcod (family Gadidae), caught seasonally along the North American coast (also called frost fish). In later use also: (in full Pacific tomcod) a similar fish of North Pacific waters, M. proximus.
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the world > animals > fish > class Osteichthyes or Teleostomi > superorder Paracanthopterygii > order Gadiformes (cod) > [noun] > miscellaneous types of
frost fish1634
tomcod1795
beardy1880
1722 New-Eng. Courant 1 Oct. 1/2 Some Fishermen in Boston made me pay Two Pence for the Sight of a Tom-Cod instead of a Maremaid.
1764 Public Advertiser 17 Aug. For Frost Fish, or Tom Cods, one Shilling by the Dozen.
1769 Mass. Gaz. 16 Feb. Whether the ninety two tom-cod and seventeen scalpions are yet digested.
1795 J. Sullivan Hist. Maine 21 The people have tom cod, or what they call frost fish, smelts, and also alewives in great plenty.
1836 N. Hawthorne Jrnl. 31 Aug.–25 Oct. in Centenary Ed. Wks. (1994) XXIII. 148 A small natural reservoir of water, far above low-water mark, in which I have observed tomcods always swimming about.
1852 San Francisco Herald 29 Nov. 2/1 A silent vow of meditation, portentous of death to tom-cods and other imprudent little fishes that come darting around the city wharves.
1941 G. de Poncins & L. Galantière Kabloona (1942) ii. i. 118 The tom-cod is a wretched fish, all mouth, and a man had to be poor indeed to want it.
1958 K. Nelson & C. Ford Klondy: Daughter Gold Rush i. 18 The white whales..had been stuffing themselves on tomcods in the slushy surf off Nome.
1977 National Geographic Apr. 457 (caption) City on ice blooms each winter on the Rivière Sainte-Anne, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, as fishermen set up their mobile huts for two-month harvest of tomcod.
2014 @jaydentonsfarm 28 Nov. in twitter.com (O.E.D. Archive) A few locals have holes punched in the ice on the Buckland River. Catching mostly Tomcod.
b. Canadian. A small immature cod ( Gadus morhua). Also: any of various other small fishes of the family Gadidae found in Arctic or subarctic waters.Quot. 1766 may represent sense 1a.
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the world > animals > fish > class Osteichthyes or Teleostomi > superorder Paracanthopterygii > order Gadiformes (cod) > [noun] > family Gadidae > genus Gadus > gadus morhua (common cod) > small or young
codling1304
morhwell1554
dorse1610
robin1618
skinner1816
sprag1874
tomcod1883
picker1895
1766 J. Banks Diary (1971) 134 Their Bait are small Fish of all Kinds when they Can gett them Herring Capelin Lance Tom Cod or young Cod.
1779 G. Cartwright Jrnl. Resid. Coast Labrador 16 Aug. (1792) II. 476 At sun-set we hauled the seine by the stage, but took only a few lance and small tom-cods.
1826 Edinb. New Philos. Jrnl. 1 33 The young cod, tom-cod, or podley, swarms in summer in all the harbours and shallow waters.
1883 Official Catal. Internat. Fisheries Exhib. (ed. 4) 174 Tom Cods, the young of Cod Fish.
1925 W. B. Mowery in Adventure 30 Jan. 32/2 Two men had untoggled the bow lines and examined the pads of the malemutes; and a third was bringing frozen tom-cod.
1966 A. R. Scammell My Newfoundland 32 School fees could not be put on the account and the schoolmaster wouldn't accept fish, tomcods or rounders.
1971 Regional Lang. Stud.—Newfoundland 3 2 A young, immature cod is called a tomcod and as such must be distinguished from the true Atlantic tomcod Microgadus tomcod.
2. U.S. regional. Any of various scorpaenid or sciaenid fishes found in shallow coastal waters, as (in California) the white croaker, Genyonemus lineatus, or a juvenile salmon grouper, Sebastes paucispinis; (in Connecticut) a fish of the genus Menticirrhus (cf. kingfish n. 1e).
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the world > animals > fish > superorder Acanthopterygii (spiny fins) > order Perciformes (perches) > family Sciaenidae (drums) > [noun] > member of genus Menticirrhus
whiting1735
kingfish1815
surf whiting1877
tomcod1881
roundhead1890
the world > animals > fish > superorder Acanthopterygii (spiny fins) > order Perciformes (perches) > order Scorpaeniformes (scorpion-fish) > [noun] > family Scorpaenidae (scorpion-fishes) > sebastes or sebastichthys
rockfish1605
yellowtaila1622
Jacob Evertsen1727
tambour1854
rasher1881
tomcod1881
corsair1884
tree-fish1888
1881 Proc. U.S. National Mus. 1880 3 145 The following species of ‘rock-fish’ were obtained by us in Monterey Bay. The names used by the fishermen..[include]: Meron, Tom-cod, Jack-fish.
1888 G. B. Goode Amer. Fishes 123 The King-Fish,..also known..as the ‘Tom-cod’ on the coast of Connecticut.
1893 Z. L. Tanner in Rep. Commissioner 1889–91 (U.S. Comm. Fish & Fisheries) 277 Flounders, soles, anchovies, tomcod, crabs, and other invertebrates were taken by the same means in the vicinity of Noonday Rock.
1954 J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday xxxiv. 241 The pelicans were drumming in for a run of tom cod.
2002 M. S. Love et al. Rockfishes Northeast Pacific 228 Tomcod is applied to young bocaccio commonly taken around wharfs.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, January 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1722