Dictionary

grilse en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɡɹɪls/

Etymology

From Middle English grills, grilles, of unknown origin. Cognate with Scots grils, grissill, girls (“young salmon”). Compare English grawl, Scots grawl, graulse (“young salmon, grilse”).

Meanings

1. A young salmon after its first return from the sea.
   • In our own tongue salmon are fry as babies, parr as children, smolt as adolescents, and grilse as adults. 1961, Albert Upton, Design for Thinking: A First Book in Semantics, Stanford University Press, page 4:
   • [T]hey ca' it fasting when they hae the best o' fish frae Hartlepool and Sunderland by land carriage, forbye trouts, gilses, salmon, and a' the lave o't, and so they make their very fasting a kind of luxury and abomination; […] 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter [VI], in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 133:

Forms

Synonyms

grilt

Translations (9)

ga bláthán (young salmon) · el σολομός ηλικίας 4 ετών (young salmon) · pl smolt (young salmon) · gv braddan noa (young salmon) · el σολομάκι (young salmon) · fa آزادماهی (young salmon) · cy gleisiad (young salmon) · mic taqawan (young salmon) · fi lohi (young salmon)