different between ellwife vs alewife

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?e?lw??f/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?e?l?wa?f/

Etymology 1

ale +? wife.

Noun

alewife (plural alewives)

1. (archaic) A woman who keeps an alehouse.

Synonyms

• brewess

Etymology 2

Unknown. Possibly from aloof, the Indian name of a fish. See Winthrop on the culture of maize in America, “Phil Trans.” No. 142, p. 1065, and Baddam’s “Memoirs,” vol. ii. p. 131.

Possibly from allowes (“a type of shad”), from French alose (“shad”), from Old French [Term?], from Late Latin alausa, influenced by Etymology 1 due to large belly of the fish.

Noun

alewife (plural alewives)

1. A migrating North American fish, Alosa pseudoharengus.
   • 1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter I. "The Shipwreck", page 14.

     I saw in Cohasset, separated from the sea only by a narrow beach, a handsome but shallow lake of some four hundred acres […] , and, after the alewives had passed into it, it had stopped up its outlet, and now the alewives were dying by thousands, and the inhabitants were apprehending a pestilence as the water evaporated.

2. Any of several species similar in appearance.

Synonyms

• (Alosa pseudoharengus): branch herring, ellwhop, ellwife, (Canada) gaspereau

Derived terms

• Alewife Brook

Translations

See also

• alewife on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Alosa pseudoharengus on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Alosa pseudoharengus on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons