[f. FISH sb.1] The tail of a fish. Chiefly attrib. of things resembling a fish’s tail in shape or action, e.g., a spreading flame from a kind of gas-burner, hence called fish-tail burner, -jet (also shortened fish-tail); fish-tail wind (see quot. 1875).
1840. Mech. Mag., XXXII. 343/2. The best small light is … the fish-tail jet.
1851. J. Bourne, Screw Propeller, 56. Fowles’s Fish-tail propeller.
1864. Sala, in Daily Tel., Oct. I turned on a fishtail burner in the middle of summer, and I have kept it burning ever since.
c. 1865. Letheby, in Circ. Sc., I. 128/2. In the case of cannel coal, the holes are small; and for common London gas they are rather large. The former are known by the name of Lancashire or Scotch fish-tails.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., x. (1885), 247. We have no more reverence for the sun than we have for a fish-tail gas-burner; we stare into his face with telescopes as at a ballet-dancer with opera-glasses.
1875. Times, 16 July, 5/5. A nasty shifting breeze blowing down the ranges all day, now on this side, now on that,—a ‘fishtail’ wind.
1882. Daily News, 15 Sept., 6/1. The day was bright with a strong fish-tail wind. Ibid. (1892), 29 March, 6/6. I spliced it to the bedstead, in what they call a fishtail knot.
b. Hence as predicative adj. rare.
1891. Daily News, 28 March, 5/6. The wind was very fish-tail and tricky.
