Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The hake when salted and dried.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A small European fish, similar to the cod, but of inferior quality.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small European fish, similar to the cod, but of inferior quality.
  • noun Salted and dried hake.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • ’ It chanced by hap to be on Friday, and therefore there was no other meat in the inn than a few pieces of a fish called in Castile abadexo, in Andalusia bacallao, and in some places curadillo, and in others truchuela, and is but poor-john.

    The First Part. II. Of the First Sally That Don Quixote Made to Seek Adventures 1909

  • ’ Then was there straight laid a table at the inn door, that he mought take the air; and the host brought him a portion of evil-watered and worse-boiled poor-john, and a loaf as black and hoary as his harness.

    The First Part. II. Of the First Sally That Don Quixote Made to Seek Adventures 1909

  • Even then, some years before our "renowned sires" with their "peerless dames" stepped on Plymouth Rock, he wrote, "Newfoundland doth yearly freight neir eight hundred sail of ships with a silly, lean, skinny, poor-john, and cor fish," though all their supplies must be annually transported from Europe.

    Cape Cod 1865

  • A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of not-of-the-newest poor-john. [

    Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 Charles Herbert Sylvester

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