Forms: 5 borbot, (6 borbotha), 7 burbott, -bate, -bout, 8–9 burbolt, (7–8 bird-bolt), 7– burbot, 9 burbet, barbott). [a. F. bourbotte (Littré), bourbete (Godef.), bourbette (Cotgr.); the usual mod.F. form is barbote, barbotte; cf. bourboter, barbotter, to dabble or wallow in mud. (The variant bird-bolt appears to be due merely to popular etymology.)]
A fresh-water fish (Lota vulgaris) of the family Gadidæ, somewhat like an eel, but with a flat head, having two small ‘beards’ on the nose and one on the chin. Also called Eel-pout or Coney-fish.
a. 1475. in Rel. Ant., I. 85. The borbottus and the stykylbakys.
c. 1520. Andrew, Noble Lyfe, in Babees Bk. (1868), 231. Borbotha be fisshes very slepery, somewhat lyke an ele hauinge wyde mouthes & great hedes, it is a swete mete.
1605. in Archæologia (1800), XIII. 348. These Fishe bee nowe in seasone … Burbott.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 241. In Staffordshire … it is call’d a Burbot or bird-bolt, perhaps from that sort of Arrow rounded at head, somewhat like this fishes.
1769. Pennant, Zool., III. 163. Burbot or Bird-bolt.
1772. Forster, in Phil. Trans., LXIII. 150. The four kinds of Hudson’s Bay fish are the Sturgeon, the Burbot, the Gwyniad … the Sucker.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., xxix. The knights think scorn of any thing worse than smelts and burbot.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 106. Barbott (or Eelpout).
