Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
From ale + wife.
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| alewives | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
es cervecera (female publican) · es tabernera (female publican) · de Wirtin (female publican) · fr patronne (female publican) · it proprietaria di una birreria (female publican) · de Schankwirtin (female publican)
Unknown. Possibly from aloof, the Narragansett name of a fish. See Winthrop on the culture of maize in America, “Phil Trans.” No. 142, p. 1065, and Baddam’s “Memoirs,” vol. ii. p. 131. Possibly from allowes (“a type of shad”), from French alose (“shad”), from Old French [Term?], from Late Latin alausa, influenced by Etymology 1 due to large belly of the fish.
Alewives are anadromous fish: Born in freshwater, they spend their lives in the ocean, returning annually to their birthplaces to spawn. Until colonial-era dams cut off their migration, hundreds of thousands of alewives would have come pouring into Rogers Lake [Connecticut, USA] every spring — and into other lakes like it along much of the Eastern Seaboard. Farmers used to apply them to their fields as fertilizer, and all along the coast, river herring festivals celebrated their arrival.2014 April 20, Richard Conniff, “An Evolutionary Family Drama”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2014:
In his System of Nature, A. D. 1776, Linnæus declares, “I hereby separate the whales from the fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnæus’s express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the Leviathan.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Cetology”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 147:
I saw in Cohasset, separated from the sea only by a narrow beach, a handsome but shallow lake of some four hundred acres, […] and, after the alewives had passed into it, it had stopped up its outlet, and now the alewives were dying by thousands, and the inhabitants were apprehending a pestilence as the water evaporated.1865, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Shipwreck”, in [Sophia Thoreau; William Ellery Channing], editors, Cape Cod, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 14:
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| alewives | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
gaspereau (Alosa pseudoharengus) · branch herring (Alosa pseudoharengus) · ellwhop (Alosa pseudoharengus) · sawbelly (Alosa pseudoharengus) · ellwife (Alosa pseudoharengus)
ca gasparell (Alosa pseudoharengus) · es pinchagua (Alosa pseudoharengus) · ru элевайф (Alosa pseudoharengus) · fi harmaasilli (Alosa pseudoharengus) · pl aloza wielkooka (Alosa pseudoharengus) · ja エールワイフ (Alosa pseudoharengus) · fr gaspareau (Alosa pseudoharengus) · fi kantasilli (Alosa pseudoharengus) · sv gumsill (Alosa pseudoharengus) · eo falsa haringo (Alosa pseudoharengus) · cmn 灰西鯡 /灰西鲱 (Alosa pseudoharengus) · de Großaugenhering (Alosa pseudoharengus) · cs placka velkooká (Alosa pseudoharengus) · ru сероспинка (Alosa pseudoharengus) · eo riveraringo (Alosa pseudoharengus) · uk сіроспинка (Alosa pseudoharengus) · fr gasparot (Alosa pseudoharengus) · pl aloza tęczowa (Alosa pseudoharengus) · nl Amerikaanse rivierharing (Alosa pseudoharengus)