Now U.S. and S. African. Also 7 specke, 9 spec, spek. [a. Du. spek († speck, MDu. spec) or G. speck (MHG. spec, OHG. spec, spech; MLG. speck, whence MSw. späk, Sw. späck, Da. spæk), related to OE. spic SPICK sb.1]
1. a. Fat meat, esp. bacon or pork. b. The fat or blubber of a whale. c. The fat of a hippopotamus.
a. 1633. Heywood, Eng. Trav., I. ii. Adue good Cheese and Oynons, stuffe thy guts With Specke and Barley-pudding for disgestion.
1809. in Thornton, Amer. Gloss., s.v., He goes out almost every week to eat speck with the country folks; thereby showing that a democratic governor is not to be choaked with fat pork.
1886. Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc., XVII. App. p. xii. ‘Speck’ is … the generic term applied [in Pennsylvania] to all kinds of fat meat.
b. 1743. Univ. Spectator, 25 Sept., 3. About ten Days ago a large Whale run ashore at Whitehills near Banff, from which they have already taken & Barrels of Speck.
1825. in Jamieson, Suppl.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. ii. 23. The spec or blubber is purchased from the natives with the usual articles of exchange.
c. 1860. P. L. Sclater, Guide Zool. Gard., 54. The layer of fat next the skin makes excellent bacon, technically denominated Hippopotamus ‘speck’ at the Cape.
1863. W. C. Baldwin, Afr. Hunting, iv. 110. Mothlow shot a sea-cow, and I went down with a whole troop of Kaffirs to bring up half a wagon-load of speck, hearing she was a very large cow.
2. attrib. in the names of tackle or apparatus used in dealing with whale-speck, as speck-block, -fall, -purchase, -tackle, -trough (see quots.).
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 299. The harpooners … divide the fat into oblong pieces or ‘slips’…; then affixing a ‘speck-tackle’ to each slip, progressively flay it off, as it is drawn upward. Ibid., 306. The ‘speck-trough’ … consists of a kind of oblong box or chest, about twelve feet in length.
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 121. The speck-falls, whereof there are two, for hoisting the blubber and bone off the whale, are ropes rove through two blocks made fast to the blubber-guy. Ibid., 290. Speck-block.
1874. A. H. Markham, Whaling Cruise to Baffin’s B., 133. The fish is taken in, in four hoists, with the fore and main spek tackles.
