Also 8 j. dorée, J. Dorey, 9 J. Doree. [In sense 2 formed by prefixing the name John to Dorée or DORY, the name of the fish, which it bore for 300 years before this addition.
Doubtless a humorous formation; possibly suggested by ‘a very popular old song or catch’ printed in 1609, and often alluded to in 17th c., the subject of which is the career of John Dory, captain of a French privateer: see Nares. The guesses that purport to explain the name from an assumed Fr. jaune dorée, or from a bogus Italian janitore, in allusion to the Sp. name San Pedro, are only ingenious trifling.]
1. Used as a proper name.
1609. Deuteromelia, in Hawkins, Hist. Mus., App. 23. John Dory bought him an ambling nag to Paris for to ride a.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. (1851), 363. Then asks my opinion of John a Nokes, and John a Stiles … I for my part think John Dory was a better man then both of them.
1655. Sir J. Mennis, Musarum Delic., 17. But I to Paris rid along Much like John Dory in the song Upon a holy Tide.
2. A popular name of a fish, Zeus faber, formerly called simply the dorée or dory.
1754. Fielding, Voy. Lisbon, Wks. 1784, X. 274. The only fish which bore any price was the john dorée, as it is called.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 30 April. Your cook … has committed felony on the person of that John Dory; which is mangled in a cruel manner.
1863. Ansted, Ionian Isl., 25. The John dory, sole and other flat fish are common enough.
