henfish

English

Alternative forms

• hen-fish, hen fish

Etymology

From hen +‎ fish.

Noun

henfish (plural henfish)

1. A marine fish, the sea bream.
2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) A young bib.
3. A female fish, especially a salmon or trout.

   Synonyms: spawner, hen

   Coordinate terms: cock, cockfish

   • 1994, Ernest Schwiebert, Remembrances of Rivers Past, page 86:

     It was a fat nineteen-inch female and we released the handsome henfish to spawn again that fall.

   • 2005, Roderick Sutterby, Malcolm Greenhalgh, “Life in the Nursery”, in Atlantic Salmon: An Illustrated Natural History, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, →ISBN, page 23:

     Spawning fish on the redds. A henfish will often be attended by two or three cockfish – whilst displaying ritual combat between themselves, one cock will mate, others may follow [image caption]

4. A fish that broods its eggs or fry, especially a lumpsucker or lumpfish (Cyclopteridae).
   • 1975, Braz Walker, Oddball Fishes & Other Strange Creatures of the Deep, page 117:

     the parental responsibility shouldered by the male lumpfish as he guards his unborn spawn and later his newborn fry has earned the master of the house the rather unlikely name of “henfish.”

   • [1994, The Grolier Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals, page 189:

     the lumpsucker gets its name from the sucker on the underside of its body. It is also called the henfish because of the devotion with which the male fish guards the eggs.]

References

• “henfish”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.