Also 5 kod, 6 codde, 7 code, 7–8 codd. [Origin uncertain: the name is known only as English. No notion of connection with Gr. γάδος (mod. zoological L. gadus) is tenable.
One suggestion is that this is the same word as COD sb.1, as if = ‘bag-fish,’ from its appearance. Wedgwood suggests identity with obs. Flem. kodde = kudse club, cudgel (Kilian), comparing the analogy of It. mazzo beetle, club, mace … also a cod-fish (Florio). But the Flemings are not known to have ever called the fish kodde.]
1. A well-known sea fish, Gadus morrhua, which inhabits the North Atlantic and its connected seas; attaining to a length of 3 feet or more, and to a weight of 20, or in exceptional cases even 50 pounds. Sometimes extended (with qualifications) to other members of the Gadidæ or Cod-tribe. (Pl. now rare: the collective sing. cod being used instead.)
Varieties named from their habitats or stations are deep-water, rock, shore, bank (i.e., Newfoundland Bank), George’s (George’s Bank, Newf.), native cod; from color, food, etc., brown, clam (i.e., clam-feeding), herring, worm cod.
1357. Act 31 Edw. III., Stat. 3 c. 2. Les trois sortz de lob, lyng & cod.
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, 845, in Babees Bk., 174. Hake, stoklysh, haddok, cod, & whytynge.
1463. Mann. & Househ. Exp. (1841), 221. ffor ij. honderyd salt kodys.
1530. Palsgr., 206/2. Codde a fysshe, cableav.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, I. 16. Here in 5. or 6. houres we tooke more Cod then we knew what to doe with.
1681. Colvil, Whigs Supplic. (1751), 121. Or like to salmons, or to codds, Or Turks, when they took in the Rhodes.
1700. J. Law, Counc. Trade (1751), 110. That … they could hedge in the herring, code and other sorts of fish.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 150. The plenty of cod … is inconceivable.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 339. Fish which live near the shores… These are called ‘Shoal-water Cod,’ ‘Shore Cod,’ ‘Inshore Cod,’ ‘Worm-cod,’ ‘Clam-Cod,’… ‘Brown Cod.’
b. More fully cod-fish.
1565–73. Cooper, Thesaurus, s.v. Caput, Capito … a coddefish.
1603. Harsnet, Pop. Impost., 93. I haue other Cod fish in water, that must not be forgotten.
1769. Pennant, Zool., III. 137. The great rendezvouz of the cod fish is on the Banks of Newfoundland.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 27. Dried codfish have acted as currency in … Newfoundland.
attrib. 1865. Daily Tel., 4 Dec., 5/6. A few of the codfish, shoddy, and petroleum aristocracy.
c. Red cod.
1889. Nature, 21 March, 499. ‘Red Cod,’ a fungoid condition sometimes met with in the preserved fish.
2. Applied to other fishes which take the economic place of the preceding in other regions: a. On the Pacific coast of North America, various fishes belonging to the family Chiridae, also distinguished as Bastard, Blue, Buffalo, Cultus, Green cod. b. In New Zealand, a serranoid fish Polyprion prognathus, called by the Maories hapuku. c. In Australia, a serranoid fish of the Murray River and its tributaries, Oligōrus macquariensis, usually called Murray cod.
1880. Günther, Introd. Study of Fishes, 392. Called by the colonists ‘Murray-Cod,’ being plentiful in the Murray River and other rivers of South Australia.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 270. The Cultus Cod, Ophiodon elongatus, is universally called ‘Cod-fish,’ where the true cod is unknown.
3. See also ROCK COD, a name applied to several distinct fishes, not related to the true Cod. One of these is also called in New Zealand Blue cod.
4. Comb. cod-banger, a vessel used in the cod-fishery; cod-bank, a submarine bank (BANK1 5) frequented by cod, or on which cod are caught; cod-chest, a chest in which cod are kept alive; cod-chowder (see CHOWDER); cod-fisher, one who fishes for cod, also a vessel used in the cod-fishery; cod-fishery, fishing for cod, esp. as a branch of industry locally organized; cod-fishing vbl. sb., fishing for cod; cod-line, a line used in fishing for cod; cod-man, a vessel used in the cod-fishery; † cod-mop, some kind of fish; cod-oil = COD-LIVER OIL; cod-pitchings, the lowest quality of cod-liver oil when obtained (as formerly) by allowing the livers to decompose; cod-sound, the ‘sound’ or air-bladder of the cod; cod-smack, a vessel engaged in cod-fishing. See also 1 b.
1864. J. G. Bertram, Notes of Trav., 51. The picturesque appearance of the *Cod bangers. Ibid. (1865), Harvest of Sea, x. (1873), 218. The fishermen of deck-welled cod-bangers use both hand-lines and long-lines.
1863. Kingsley, Water-bab., vii. 265. Eighty miles of *codbank.
1865. Parkman, Champlain, i. (1875), 170. All frequented … the cod-banks of Newfoundland.
1884. F. Day, Commercial Sea Fishes, 126. A plan is adopted for keeping cod alive by transferring them to *cod-chests, which are kept floating in docks.
1851. H. Melville, Moby-Dick, xv. 73. A fine *cod-chowder was placed before us.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), *Cod-fisher.
1753. Scots Mag., XV. Feb., 65. The Danes are setting up a *cod-fishery on the coast of Iceland.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 63. *Cod-lines of 18 threads are used on the banks of Newfoundland.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 Feb., 10/2. The long-missing Grimsby fishing vessels … number … six trawlers and one *codman, and their crews.
1466. Mann. & Househ. Exp. (1841), 337. My mastyr paid for xxix. *codmoppes, x.d.
1861. Our Eng. Home, 69.
1868. Royle & Headland, Mat. Med. (ed. 5), 745. The livers of some other fishes nearly related to the Cod … are supposed to yield a small part of the *Cod oil of commerce.
1858. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 8), XVI. 494. Turbid, and extremely offensive to the smell, and is known under the name of *cod-pitchings.
1756. in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1886), II. 147. Building one *cod smack.
1808. Forsyth, Beauties Scotl., V. 12. Before … the French revolution, a London fishing-vessel or cod-smack was never seen in the Pentland Frith.
c. 1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, *Codsounds, the Pith or Marrow in the Cod’s Back, esteem’d as choice Peck.
1836. F. Mahony, Reliques Father Prout, Watergr. Carousal. A keg of cod-sounds.
