History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 176

Matie (1858), a herring in what is considered the best condition for food, when the roe
is perfectly but not largely developed; ad. Du. maatjes(haring), earlier maetgens-,
maeghdekens-, from maagd, maid, and ken, kin (cf. MLG. madikesherink, LG. maidkenshering).
There are a few terms applied to fish.
Roe (a. 14.., Voc. in Wr.-Wü., c. 1430), the mass of eggs contained in the ovarian
membrane of a fish; the ME. type *ro (e), row(e), corresponds to M.Du. roch, roge
(Kilian, roghe), Flem. rog, MLG. roge, rogge; it is not clear whether this is a native
Eng. word, unrecorded in OE., or, perhaps more probably, a later adoption from Low
Dutch.
Milt (1483, Caxton), the roe or spawn of the male fish, the ‘soft roe’; the spleen in
mammals; OE. milte, spleen, corresponds to OF. milte, spleen, M.Du. milte, Du. milt,
spleen, also the milt of fish, ON. milti, spleen; the sense ‘spawn of fish’ may have been
adopted from Du.; as the milt of fish is of a soft substance like the spleen, the
transferred use was not unnatural; but it was no doubt helped to gain currency by the
resemblance in sound between milt and milk (Du. milch), the older name for the soft
roe of a fish. Milter (1601), a male fish, esp. in spawning time; from milt and -er, but
perhaps adopted from the equivalent Du. milter.
School (c. 1400), a shoal or large number of fish, porpoises, whales, &c., swimming
together whilst feeding or migrating; (1555), a troop, crowd (of persons), a large
number; ad. Du. school, troop, multitude, ‘school’ of whales, M.Du. schole. Shoal
(1573), a large number of fish, &c. (in Spenser, 1573, applied to persons; in North,
1579-80, to birds; in Nashe, 1593, to fish); the earlier history of the word is uncertain;
etymologically it is identical with OE. scolu, troop, which corresponds to OS. scola,
multitude, MLG. schole, M.Du. schole, multitude, flock, shoal of fishes, Du. school; it is
possible that in OE. the word had the unrecorded sense of a shoal of fishes, and in
this sense continued in nautical use, but it is simpler to suppose that the 16th-century
shole was a readoption of the Du. form, which in the 14th century had been taken into
Eng. as scole; the initial (ʃ) may be an Eng. sound-substitution for the Du. (sχ), or it
may have come in from one of the Flem. dialects in which sch was pronounced (ʃ).
Rope-sick (1614, T. Gentleman, Eng. Way to Win Wealth), of herring, having the
back infested with parasitical worms; ad. Du. dial. ropziek; the pamphlet of 1614 is the
source of the later quotations.
5. 4.
An important group of words consists of the names of kinds of fishing-boats and of the
tackle and equipment used in fishing.
Buss (1471), a fW76V