Forms: 1 lop(p)estre, lopystre, 4 lopister, 4–7 lopster, 5 loppestere, lopstere, 5–7 lobstar, 6 Sc. lapstar, 6–7 lopstar, 4– lobster. [OE. lopustre, lopystre, loppestre, corruptly ad. L. locusta LOCUST. The L. word orig. denotes a lobster or some similar crustacean, the application to the locust being suggested by the resemblance in shape. In late L. the original sense survived alongside the other: cf. F. langouste, OCornish legast lobster.
The ending -stre of the OE. word is due to assimilation to OE. fem. agent-nouns (see -STER): cf. OE. myltestre from L. meretrix. The cause of the substitution of p for the L. c is obscure.]
1. A large marine stalk-eyed ten-footed long-tailed crustacean of the genus Homarus, much used for food; it is greenish or bluish black when raw, and of a brilliant red when boiled; the first pair of feet are very large and form the characteristic ‘claws.’
a. 1000. Ælfric, Colloq., in Wr.-Wülcker, 94/14. Crabban muslan pinewinclan … and lopystran and fela swylces.
a. 1100. Voc., ibid. 319/20. Polipos, loppestre.
1311–2. Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 9. In sperling’, creuis, lopisters, et pisc. aque dulcis. Ibid. (1314–5), 10. In burbot, sprot et lopsters.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. lxxviii. (1495), 909. The vertue of gendringe of egges is … in crabbes and lobsters.
c. 1450. Two Cookery-bks., 114. Nym ye perch other ye loppestere or drie haddok.
c. 1475. Pict. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 764/31. Hic polupus, a lobstar.
c. 1560. A. Scott, Poems (S. T. S.), v. 33. Lapstaris, lempettis, mussillis in schellis.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, I. iii. 181. A Crabs bak’d guts, a Lobsters butterd thigh.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xv. 142. Lobsters will swim swiftly backward.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, 338/1. A Crefish … a Species of the Lobster, but of a lesser size.
1720. Gay, Poems (1745), II. 17. On unadulterate wine we here regale, And strip the lobster of his scarlet mail.
1794. C. Pigot, Female Jockey Club, 139. She faints at the approach of a mouse; if surprised by the sight of a black lobster, she screams unmercifully.
1875. F. W. Pavy, Food (ed. 2), 174. The flesh of the lobster is mainly found in the tail and claws.
b. Applied with qualification to other crustaceans resembling the above. Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus. Spiny or thorny lobster, Palinurus vulgaris = CRAYFISH 3 b. Some crayfishes are called fresh-water lobsters.
1778. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2), III. 1610/1. The strigosus, or plated lobster, with a pyramidal spiny snout.
1795. trans. Thurberg’s Trav., I. 240. The Cape lobster (Cancer arctos) … has no large claws, and is craggy all over, and covered with erect prickles.
1819. G. Samouelle, Entomol. Compend., 92. Palinurus vulgaris … is sometimes denominated Spiny-lobster, or sea Cray-fish.
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea, 81. The sea cray-fish, or thorny lobster.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 104. A peculiar pale-blue Lobster from Norway.
c. The flesh of the animal, as food.
1789. Cullen, Mat. Med., I. 393. I have known … persons who could not take even a very small quantity of lobster or crab without being affected soon after with a violent colic.
¶ d. The construction of jointed plate-armor is often described by comparison to a lobster’s tail. Cf. lobster-tail, -tailed (in 5 below).
1786. Grose, Anc. Armour, 22. Gauntlets … were … oftener of small plates of iron rivetted together, in imitation of the lobster’s tail, so as to yield to every motion of the hand, Ibid., 23. Cuissarts or thigh pieces…. They were made flexible at the knees by joints like those in the tail of a lobster.
† 2. An opprobrious name (? for a red-faced man).
1602. Middleton, Blurt Master Constable, D 2 b. Let him goe … an old combe-peckt rascall … hang him, lobster.
1605. Tryall Chev., II. i. in Bullen, O. Pl., III. 289. What a dictionary of proper names hath the Rogue got together!… Ile pearce you for this, you Lobster. Ibid., 290. Leere not, Lobster, lest I thump that russeting face of yours with my sword hilt.
1609. B. Jonson, Epicœne, V. iii. Wks. (1616), 593. You whorson Lobster.
3. A contemptuous name for: A British soldier. The name was originally applied to a regiment of Roundhead cuirassiers from their wearing complete suits of armor (cf. 1 d above). In later times it has been referred to the characteristic red coat. Also boiled lobster. Raw (or unboiled) lobster: a policeman; so called in contradistinction to ‘boiled lobster,’ on account of his blue uniform.
c. 1643. Songs Lond. Prentices (Percy Soc.), 68. When as ’tis but a lobster, whom (men say) Turn him but o’re and o’re he’ll turn to you.
1644–7. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurn., 5. Translate but the Scene to Roundway-downe: There Hasleriggs Lobsters were turned into Crabs, and crawl’d backwards.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VII. § 104. [June 1643] Sir William Waller having received from London a fresh regiment of five hundred horse, under the command of sir Arthur Haslerigge, which were so prodigiously armed that they were called by the other side the regiment of lobsters, because of their bright iron shells with which they were covered, being perfect curasseers.
1660. in Harl. Misc. (1810), V. 73. Redcoats, lobsters, corporals, troopers, or dragoons.
1687. T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. 1730, I. 73. The women … exclaim against lobsters and tatterdemallions, and desire ’em to prove ’twas ever known … that a red-coat died for religion.
1776. S. Haws, in Milit. Jrnls. (1855), 89. The Lobsters [i.e., British troops] came out almost to copple hill and took 3 cows.
1803. Sporting Mag., XXII. 29. He had gained over the lobster, as he called the serjeant.
1829. Buckstone, Billy Taylor, I. iii. I … am no more a dull drab-coated watchman…. Mary.… Thou unboiled lobster, hence!
1830. Ann. Reg., Chron., 9 Nov., 191/2. ‘No Peel—down with the raw lobsters!’
1878. Besant & Rice, Celia’s Arb., xxxix. (1887), 284. Jack the Sailor, Joe the Marine, and the Boiled Lobster.
1896. W. W. Jacobs, Many Cargoes, 214. She’s married a lobster…. He’s a sergeant in the line.
attrib. or appos. 1758. L. Lyon, in Milit. Jrnls. (1855), 40. This afternoon their was a Lobster Corperel married to a Road Island whore.
1779. J. Carpenter, in Proc. Vermont Hist. Soc. (1872), p. viii. 7 Prisoners broke Prison from the grand Lobster guard at Fortin.
b. slang phr. To boil one’s lobster: see quot.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v., To boil one’s lobster, for a churchman to become a soldier, lobsters which are of a bluish black, being made red by boiling.
4. Short for lobster-caterpillar, -moth.
1869. E. Newman, Brit. Moths, 216. The Lobster (Stauropus Fagi). Ibid., 217. This singular caterpillar, which is known to collectors as ‘The Lobster,’ feeds on oak and birch.
5. attrib. and Comb., as lobster-catch, -catching, -fishery, -fishing, -hatchery, -man, -red adj., -salad, -sauce, -shell, -shop, -supper, -woman; lobster-boat, a boat used in lobster-fishing, fitted with a well in which to keep the lobsters alive; lobster-box slang, (a) a transport ship; (b) barracks (Slang Dict., 1865); lobster-car U.S., ‘a box or frame in which lobsters are kept alive under water awaiting sale or transport’ (Cent. Dict.); lobster caterpillar, the larva of the lobster-moth; lobster-clad a., clad in jointed armor suggesting a lobster’s shell; lobster-claw, (a) ‘a screw jack used in setting rigging’ (Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl.); (b) pl. a common marine alga, Polysiphonia elongata, so called because it bears tufts of filaments resembling a lobster’s claws (Cent. Dict.); lobster-coated a., red-coated; lobster-crab, a crustacean of the family Porcellanidæ; a porcelain-crab; lobster-crawl, ‘a fishing ground for lobsters’ (Cent. Dict.); lobster-creel, = lobster-pot; lobster-flower, the Barbadoes flower-fence, Poinciana pulcherrima (Treas. Bot., Suppl. 1874); lobster-joint, a joint in an instrument resembling a joint in a lobster’s claws; lobster-louse, a parasite of the lobster, Nicothoe astaci; lobster-moth, the bombycid moth Stauropus fagi; lobster-night nonce-wd., ? a night celebrated by a lobster supper; lobster-pot, a basket or similar structure serving as a trap to catch lobsters; lobster-smack jocular, a military transport; lobster-tail, a piece of armor jointed after the manner of a lobster’s tail (cf. 1 d); also attrib.; lobster-tailed a., wearing ‘lobster-tail’ or jointed armor; lobster-trap = lobster-pot.
1777. Pennant, Zool., IV. 8. I am told … that when men of war meet a *lobster-boat, a jocular threat is used, That, if the master do not sell them good lobsters, they will salute him.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, ii. (1842), 64. We landed in the *lobster-box, as Jack loves to designate a transport.
1887. G. B. Goode, etc., Fisheries U.S., V. II. 674. Entirely submerged *lobster-cars are used in Norway.
1901. Q. Rev., July, 48. If the difficulties in reference to the treaties were confined to the *lobster catch, it would be a trivial matter to deal with.
1881. W. H. Bishop, in Scribner’s Mag., XXII. 215/1. For *lobster-catching on a smaller scale, two kinds of nets … are occasionally used.
1859. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., II. xciii. 73. The ancient *lobster-clad knights.
1794[?]. Burns, Lett. to Mrs. Riddel, Wks. (Globe), 539. Those *lobster-coated puppies.
1854. A. Adams, etc., Man. Nat. Hist., 290. *Lobster-crabs (Porcellanidæ).
1853. Reade, Chr. Johnstone, 320. The periodical laying down, on rocky shoals, and taking up again, of *lobster-creels.
1865. Bertram, Harvest of Sea, 391. In France the *lobster-fishery is to some extent ‘regulated.’ Ibid., 385. *Lobster-fishing.
1884. Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888), II. 53. Two methods of lobster fishing are in vogue.
1889. Nature, 21 March, 499. A complete *lobster-hatchery could be established … on the West coast.
1880. M. Mackenzie, Dis. Throat & Nose, I. 511. The introduction of the inner tube [into the trachea] without employing *lobster-joints.
1863. Wood, Nat. Hist., III. 640. The *Lobster-louse is sometimes found in considerable numbers, fixed to the gills of the lobster.
1881. W. H. Bishop, in Scribner’s Mag., XXII. 210/2. The typical lobsterman lives at the bottom of a charming and remote cove.
1819. G. Samouelle, Entomol. Compend., 247. *Lobster moth.
1863. Wood, Nat. Hist., III. 535. The Lobster-moth derives its name from the grotesque exterior of the caterpillar.
1715. Pope, Farew. to London, Wks. (Globe, 1895), 479. Luxurious *lobster-nights farewell, For sober studious days!
1764. Ann. Reg., 92. Tangled in the lines of some *lobster pots.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., IV. xxii. (ed. 2), 508. The number of lobsters taken weekly from the various lobster-pots round the coast of Guernsey is estimated to average 4,000.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xv. 167. The little *lobster-red fury of a stove.
1819. Byron, Juan, I. cxxxv. I’m fond of … A *lobster salad.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, vi. We had champagne and lobster-salad.
1822. Blackw. Mag., XI. 161. Turbot … which ruddy *lobster-sauce accompanies.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, vi. *Lobster shells.
1823. Blackw. Mag., XIV. 508. An occasional crash of oyster-shells cast … from some *lobster-shop.
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, v. I steered for ‘the *lobster-smack.’
1869. C. C. Black, trans. Demmin’s Weapons War (1877), 219. The long *‘lobster-tails’ which replaced the waist-piece and the tassets.
1880. M. Mackenzie, Dis. Throat & Nose, I. 512. The angular and descending portions of the inner tube of the … canula … have to be made with joints on the lobster-tail principle.
1826. Scott, Woodst., v. Oliver on horseback,… charging with his *lobster-tailed squadron.
1889. Doyle, Micah Clarke, 376. Old as I am … I am fit to exchange broadsides with any lobster-tailed piccaroon.
1865. Bertram, Harvest of Sea, 385. The *lobster-traps and crab-cages, which are not unlike overgrown rat-traps.
1898. G. Parker, Battle of the Strong, v. 33. A *lobster-woman shrieking that the Day of Judgment was come, instinctively straightened her cap, smoothed out her dress of molleton, and put on her sabots.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Lobsterdom, the realm of lobsters; Lobsterling, a young lobster.
1863. Kingsley, Water-Bab., 146. He had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom.
1901. Spectator, 27 July, 119/2. Sunlight … brings swarms of lobsterlings to the top of the jars in which they are hatched.
