Also white-fish, white fish. [Cf. Du. witvisch bleak, LG. witfisk, med.L. albus piscis.]
1. A general name for fishes of a white or light color (esp. those having silvery scales without spots or ornamental colors), as cod, haddock, whiting, etc.
1461–2. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 301. Samon, heringe, hake, whitfishe.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), I. p. xxxvii. This firth is richt plentuus of coclis, osteris [etc.] … with gret plente of quhit fische.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., ix. 131. Those White-fish that in her [sc. Lin] doe wondrously abound, Are neuer seene in him [sc. Dee]; nor are his Salmons found At any time in her.
1701. [W. Paterson], Counc. Trade (1751), 28. The vast numbers of herring and white-fish in all our channels, inletts and lakes.
1787. Best, Angling (ed. 2), 133. Carshalton-river, abounding with trouts and other white fishes.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., xxxi. The great pike … sending the whitefish flying in shoals.
2. The Great Sturgeon (= BELUGA 1); the White Whale (= BELUGA 2).
1662. J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 165. A Fisherman … took a Bieluga or white-fish, which was above eight foot long, and above four broad.
1698. A. Brand, Emb. Muscovy to China, 31. The Oby … abounds in … Sturgeon, Whitefish or Belluja’s, and others.
1743. Phil. Trans., XLII. 611. The Whitefish are likewise in these Seas, like a Whale, but without Fins on the Back.
1792. G. Cartwright, Jrnl. Labrador, III. p. x. Whitefish, a fish of the Porpoise kind.
3. A common name for the fishes of the genus Coregonus, of the family Salmonidæ, found in the lakes of North America, and valued as food.
1748. [see TITTYMEG].
1778. T. Hutchins, Top. Descr. Virginia, 47. Lake Erie has a great variety of fine fish, such as Sturgeon, Eel, White Fish.
1873. T. Gill, Catal. Fishes E. Coast N. Amer., 29. Pomatomus saltatrix.… Blue-fish…; white-fish and snap-mackerel (young). Ibid., 33. Brevoortia menhaden … white-fish (Saybrook to Milford, Connecticut).
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 160A. The famous Corregonus albus, or White Fish, of Canadian lakes.
Hence White fisher, one who catches white fish (sense 1); White fishery, fishing, the occupation of catching white fish.
1528. Extr. Aberd. Reg. (1844), I. 121. All the *quhit fischaris … consentit to gif to thair chaplane … xii d. in the yeir. Ibid. (1601), (1848), II. 217. Willeame Brabner, Patrik Huchoun, and James Symsoun, quhytfischeris in Futtie.
1772. Edinburgh Advertiser, 12 June, 6/1. At Montrose,… died Thomas Milne, white fisher, aged about 100 years.
1892. Daily News, 26 March, 3/3. The Committee have devised a modus vivendi by which the rights of the salmon fishers have been protected, and at the same time the rights of the white fishers have been established.
1791. Newte, Tour Eng. & Scot., 168. Small vessels [employed] in the *White Fisheries.
1840. Blaine, Encycl. Rur. Sports, VIII. ii. 955. The British fisheries, which, besides the herring, embrace the cod, the ling, haddock, skate, halibut, turbot, &c. are collectively termed the white fishery.
1600. Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot., 341/1. Cum lie stelyair, halecum et salmonum piscationibus et lie *quhite-fischingis.
1703. J. Brand, Descr. Orkney, etc., 79. Excelling any other place of the King of Brittan’s Dominions for Herring, White and Grey Fishing.
1892. Rep. Solway White Fish. Comm. The white-fishing industry … on the Scottish shores of the Solway Firth.
