/ · 1894 Brewer’s · S · Shotten Herring
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A lean spiritless creature, a Jack-oʹ-Lent, like a herring that has shot or ejected its spawn. Herrings gutted and dried are so called also.
“Though they like shotten-herrings are to see,
Yet such tall souldiers of their teeth they be,
That two of them, like greedy cormorants,
Devour more then sixe honest Protestants.”
Taylor’s Workes, iii. 5.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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