Also tautaug, tetaug. [ad. Narragansett taut-auog, pl. of taut name of the fish: see quot. 1643.] A labroid fish, Tautoga americana (T. onitis), also called black-fish or oyster-fish, abundant on the Atlantic coast of N. America, and esteemed for food.
1643. Roger Williams, Key to Lang. of America, xix. 115. Of Fish and Fishing. Taut-aüog. Sheeps-heads.
1815. De Witt Clinton, Remarks on Mitchill’s Fishes, 400. The tautog was not originally known in Massachusetts bay; but, within a few years, he has been carried beyond Cape Cod, and has multiplied so abundantly, that the Boston market has now a full supply.
1828–32. Webster, Tetaug, the name of a fish on the coast of New England; called also black fish.
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Tautaug.
1851. Hawthorne, Ho. Sev. Gables, xviii. Real turtle, we understand, and salmon, tautog, canvass-backs, pig, English mutton.
1888. G. B. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 288. ‘Tautog’ would consequently seem to be a word from the dialect of the Narragansett Indians.
