See Also: Mackerel(medicine)
Mackerel(recipes)
mackerel(dictionary)
mackerel(encyclopedia)
mackerel(2)(dictionary)
mackerel(1)(dictionary)
mackerel shark(encyclopedia)
Spiced Mackerel(recipes)
Mackerel, S.A. SICAV(finance)
Smoked Mackerel Pate(recipes)

mackerel(1) (iou)



mackerel noun1. Pl. -s, same. ME.
[Anglo-Norman makerel, Old French maquerel (mod. maquereau), of unkn. origin (cf. -EL2). Cf. medieval Latin (Flanders) macarellus (12).]
Any of various swift-swimming pelagic fishes of the family Scombridae, of which several are commercially important as food fishes; esp. Scomber scombrus, of the N. Atlantic and Mediterranean, which approaches the shore in shoals in summer for spawning; (with specifying word) any of certain other fishes resembling these. Also, the flesh of any of these fishes as food. ME.
a sprat to catch a mackerel: see SPRAT noun1. FRIGATE mackerel. holy mackerel: see HOLY adjective 5. horse-mackerel: see HORSE noun. Monterey mackerel, Monterey Spanish mackerel: see MONTEREY 3. snake mackerel: see SNAKE noun. Spanish mackerel: see SPANISH adjective.
Angling. (An artificial fly imitating) a kind of mayfly. Also mackerel-fly. Now rare or obsolete. L18.
Comb.: mackerel-back, mackerel-backed adjectives (a) slang long-backed; (b) mackerel-back sky, mackerel-backed sky, = mackerel sky below; mackerel-boat: for mackerel-fishing; mackerel breeze, mackerel gale a breeze that ruffles the water, said to favour the catching of mackerel; mackerel clouds: in a mackerel sky; mackerel-fly: see sense 2 above; mackerel gale: see mackerel breeze above; mackerel gull N. Amer. a tern; mackerel shark a shark of the family Lamnidae, esp. the porbeagle, Lamna nasus, or the mako, Isurus oxyrinchus; mackerel sky a sky dappled with rows of small white fleecy clouds, resembling the pattern on a mackerel's back.
mackereling noun (a) fishing for mackerel; (b) a patterned effect like that of a mackerel sky or mackerel's back: M19.