mackerel

English

Scomber scombrus

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmækɹəl/
• Hyphenation: mack‧e‧rel

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Etymology 1

Middle English, from Old French maquerel. Further origin unknown.

Noun

mackerel (plural mackerel or mackerels)

1. An edible fish of the family Scombridae, often speckled.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Philander went into the next room […] and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm. Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack.

Derived terms

• a sprat to catch a mackerel
• Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus)
• cero mackerel (Scomberomorus regalis)
• chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus)
• common mackerel (Scomber scombrus)
• double-lined mackerel (Grammatorcynus bilineatus)
• holy mackerel
• horse mackerel
• jack mackerel (Trachurus spp.)
• king mackerel (Scomberomorus cavalla)
• mackerel bird (Jynx torquilla)
• mackerel cock (Puffinus puffinus)
• mackerel gale
• mackerel gull (Sterninae)
• mackerel icefish (Champsocephalus gunnari)
• mackerel midge (Gadidae spp.)
• mackerel-pike (Scomberesocidae)
• mackerel scad (Decapterus macarellus)
• mackerel shad (Decapterus spp.)
• mackerel shark (Lamniformes)
• mackerel sky
• mackerel snapper
• mackerel tuna (Euthynnus alletteratus)
• snake mackerel (Gempylus serpens)
• Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorini)
• yellow mackerel (Caranx crysos)

 

Translations

edible fish

• Abenaki: makelo
• Ainu: サバ (saba)
• Arabic: إِسْقُمَرِيّ‎ m (ʾisqumariyy), مَاكْرِيل‎ m (mākrīl)

  Moroccan Arabic: كبايلا‎ (kabāyla)

• Armenian: սկումբրիա (hy) (skumbria)
• Asturian: xarda
• Basque: berdel
• Belarusian: ску́мбрыя f (skúmbryja)
• Bulgarian: ску́мрия (bg) f (skúmrija)
• Catalan: verat (ca) m, cavalla (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 鯖魚, 鲭鱼 (cing¹ jyu^4-2)

  Mandarin: 鯖魚 (zh), 鲭鱼 (zh) (qīngyú)

• Cornish: briel m
• Czech: makrela (cs) f
• Danish: makrel (da)
• Dutch: makreel (nl) m
• Esperanto: skombro
• Estonian: makrell
• Faroese: makrelur m
• Finnish: makrilli (fi)
• French: maquereau (fr) m
• Galician: xarda (gl) f, macareu m, rinchón (gl) m, correolo (gl) m, pínfano (gl) m, torniño m, torno m
• German: Makrele (de) f
• Greek: σκουμπρί (el) n (skoumprí)

  Ancient: σκόμβρος m (skómbros)

• Greenlandic: avaleraasartooq, makreli
• Hebrew: מקרל‎ m (makarél)
• Hungarian: makréla (hu)
• Icelandic: makríll (is) m
• Ido: makrelo (io)
• Indonesian: tenggiri (id), kembung (id)
• Irish: ronnach (ga) m, murlas m, maicréal m
• Italian: sgombro (it) m, sgombero (it) m

• Japanese: 鯖 (ja) (さば, saba), サバ (ja) (saba)
• Kazakh: скумбрия (skwmbrïya)
• Korean: 고등어 (ko) (godeung'eo)
• Latin: scomber m
• Latvian: skumbrija, makrele
• Lithuanian: skumbrė
• Luxembourgish: Makréil f
• Malay: tenggiri
• Manchu: ᡶᡠᠰᡝᠯᡳ (fuseli)
• Manx: breck marrey m
• Maori: tawatawa, tewetewe
• Norman: maqu'sé m (Jersey), maqu'thé m (Jersey)
• Northern Sami: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian: makrell
• Occitan: vairat (oc) m
• Persian: اسقومری‎ (fa) (esqumri), خالمخالی‎ (xālmaxāli)
• Polish: makrela (pl) f
• Portuguese: cavala (pt) f
• Romanian: macrou (ro) n
• Russian: ску́мбрия (ru) f (skúmbrija), макре́ль (ru) f (makrélʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: rionnach
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ску̏ша f

  Roman: skȕša (sh) f

• Sicilian: scòmmiru, sgrommu
• Slovak: makrela f
• Slovene: skuša (sl) f
• Spanish: caballa (es) f
• Swedish: makrill (sv) c
• Telugu: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: uskumru (tr)
• Ukrainian: ску́мбрія f (skúmbrija)
• Vietnamese: cá thu (vi)
• Welsh: macrell (cy) m

See also

• scombral
• tuna

References

• mackerel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Scombridae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Scombridae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Etymology 2

From Middle English [Term?], from Old French maquerel, from Middle Dutch makelare, makelaer (“broker”) (> makelaar (“broker, peddler”)). See also French maquereau.

Noun

mackerel (plural mackerels)

1. (obsolete) A pimp; also, a bawd.
   • 1483, William Caxton, Magnus Cato, quoted in James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, vol. 2, publ. by John Russell Smith (1847), page 536.

     […] nyghe his hows dwellyd a maquerel or bawde […]

   • 1980, The Police Journal, Volume 53 (page 257) doi:10.1177/0032258X8005300305 (also available at Google books)

     NETTING MACKEREL: THE PIMP DETAIL

   • 1981, Peter Gammond, Raymond Horricks, Big Bands, page 15:

     Hundreds of ‘night birds’ and their ‘mackerels’ and other vice-pushers were sent packing.

   • 2006, Paul Crowley, Message-ID: <ciGug.11527$j7.319767@news.indigo.ie> in humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare [1]

     A procurer or a pimp is a broker (or broker-between), a mackerel, or a pandar; the last is not necessarily-and, indeed, not usually-a professional.

   • 2009, Jeffery Klaehn, Roadblocks to Equality, →ISBN, (page 118) [2]

     You can't 'work' in a legal brothel without mackerel.

   • 2012, J. Robert Janes, Mayhem, →ISBN, [3]

     Perhaps, but my sources think the mackerel knew of this girl but she didn't know of him.