Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A North American fish, Clupea vernalis, from 8 to 10 inches long, resembling a small shad, but much inferior to it as food. It is taken in large numbers with that fish.
  • noun A name given at Bermuda to the round pompano, Trachynotus ovatus. See pompano.
  • noun A local English name of the allice-shad.
  • noun A woman who keeps an ale-house.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A North American fish (Clupea vernalis) of the Herring family. It is called also ellwife, ellwhop, branch herring. The name is locally applied to other related species.
  • noun A woman who keeps an alehouse.

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

  • noun archaic A woman who keeps an alehouse.
  • noun A North American fish (Clupea vernalis) of the herring family.
  • noun A migrating North American fish, Alosa pseudoharengus.
  • noun Any of several species similar in appearance.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun flesh of shad-like fish abundant along the Atlantic coast or in coastal streams
  • noun shad-like food fish that runs rivers to spawn; often salted or smoked; sometimes placed in genus Pomolobus

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ale + wife

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