different between sprat vs mackerel

English

Etymology

From Middle English sprotte, from Old English sprot. Older source is unknown. Cognate with German Sprotte, Dutch sprot. Compare sprout.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?æt/
• Rhymes: -æt

Noun

sprat (plural sprat or sprats)

1. Any of various small, herring-like, marine fish in the genus Sprattus, in the family Clupeidae.
2. (Britain, slang, obsolete) A sixpence.

Derived terms

• a sprat to catch a mackerel
• spratlike

Translations

See also

• pilchard
• sardine

References

• (sixpence): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• S trap, TRAPS, parts, prats, rapts, strap, tarps, traps

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sprât/

Noun

spr?t m (Cyrillic spelling ??????)

1. floor, story/storey (level)

Declension

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:?????.

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?mæk??l/
• Hyphenation: mack?e?rel

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.

Derived terms

Translations

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

   • 2006, Paul Crowley, Message-ID: <[email protected]> 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.