Also -paidle, -peddle. Sc. [see quot. 1859; by some, cock appears to be taken in sense of ‘male.’] A name of the Common Lump-fish, Cyclopterus lumpus.
a. 1672. Willughby, De Hist. Pisc., IV. (1686), 208. The Lump or Sea-Owl, Scotis Cock-Paddle.
1684. Sibbald, Scotia, 24 (Jam.). Lumpus Anglorum, nostratibus Cock-Paddle.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xi. ‘How much for the bannock-fluke and cock-paddle?’
a. 1855. G. Johnston, Fishes of Berwicksh. (in Yarrell). The Cock and Hen Paidle spawn toward the end of March and in April. At that season the Hen … deposits her spawn among the rocks and sea-weed.
1859. Richardson, in Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, II. 344. The epithet of Cock-paidle seems to have originated in the appearance of the elevated dorsal ridge, which is enveloped, like the rest of the fish, in a thick, tuberculated skin, with some resemblance to the comb of a domestic cock.
