[f. CRAMP sb.1 + FISH: cf. Du. kram-visch torpedo (Kilian).] The electric ray or torpedo, also called cramp-ray and numb-fish.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Torpigo, a crampfish, Torpedo.
1598. E. Gilpin, Skial. (1878), 40. And like the Cramp-fish darts … His slie insinuating poysonous iuice.
1655. Culpepper, etc. Riverius, I. v. 19. That Palsey which is caught by touching of the Torpedo or Cramp-fish.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 384. The Torpedo or Cramp-fish … by his frigidity he benums such fish as swim over or lodge near him, and so preys upon them.
1773. Grant, in Phil. Trans., LXIV. 468. The general name by which they are known here, is the Numb or Cramp-fish.
fig. 1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Plato, Wks. (Bohn), I. 304. He cannot even tell what it is—this Cramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him.
