Sc. and Anglo-Irish. Also stainloch. [Of doubtful origin; found in recent Gaelic as steinloch.
A Scandinavian fish-name of similar sound is Sw. stenlake stickleback, app. f. sten stone + lake eelpout (also in MSw. and mod.Norw.); cf. Norw. lakesild (sild herring) a kind of whitefish. But connection seems unlikely.]
The Coal-fish or Sillock, Merlangus carbonarius.
1811. J. Macdonald, View Agric. Hebrides, 631 (Jam.). They [the inhabitants of Islay] catch a number of stenlock … off the point of the Rinns of Islay.
1863. [W. F. Campbell], Life in Normandy, I. 283. It was some time before I knew that stainloch, greyfish … and poddly, were all one fish at different ages.
1864. Rep. Sea Fisheries Comm. (1865), II. 1190/2. Stenlock are caught in great abundance with the cod-nets.
attrib. 1893. N. Munro, Gilian the Dreamer (1893), 167. A gross of stenlock hooks to grapple ye.
