different between cherrystone vs quahog

English

Etymology

cherry +? stone

Noun

cherrystone (plural cherrystones)

1. (used as a size classification by fish merchants) A hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) that is larger than a countneck, littleneck or topneck but smaller than a quahog.
   • 1937, Damon Runyon, A Piece of Pie

     Miss Violette Shumberger names twelve dozen cherrystone clams as the second course, and Joe Duffle says two gallons of Philadelphia pepperpot soup as the third.

English

Etymology

Most often thought to be from Narragansett poquaûhock (“hard clam”), perhaps from pohkeni (“dark”) +? hogki (“shell”). Alternatively from Mohegan-Pequot p'quaghhaug (“hard clam”)or another Algonquian language.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k??.h??/, /?kw??.h??/, /?kw??.h??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kw?.h??/, /?kw?.h??/; /?kw?.h??/, /?kw?.h??/
  • also, especially as quohog: /?kwo?.h??/, /?kwo?.h??/,
  • also, especially as cohog: /?ko?.h??/, /?ko?.h??/,
  • also: /kw??h??/, /kw?.?h??/
• Hyphenation: qua?hog

Noun

quahog (plural quahogs)

1. An edible clam with a hard shell found along the Atlantic Coast of North America, from species Mercenaria mercenaria, formerly Venus mercenaria.
   1. The largest size of such an edible clam, generally considered only fit for use in chowders and other clam dishes.
2. A similar edible clam found along coasts around the North Atlantic, generally in deeper waters, the ocean quahog, black quahog, mahogany clam or Icelandic cyprine, Arctica islandica

Alternative forms

• quahaug (slightly more common until the 1950s, now uncommon)
• quohog (regional US; uncommon nationally)
• cohog (regional US; uncommon nationally)

Synonyms

• (Mercenaria mercenaria): hard clam, chowder clam, round clam; count neck (smallest), littleneck (small), cherrystone (smaller medium), topneck (larger medium)
• (largest size of quahog): chowder clam

Verb

quahog (third-person singular simple present quahogs, present participle quahogging, simple past and past participle quahogged)

1. (intransitive) To dig for quahogs.

References

Further reading

• quahog at OneLook Dictionary Search