Also 7 capline, -ling, 7–9 capeling, 8 -elan, caplein, 9 capalan. [= Fr. capelan, caplan, Sp. capelan.] A small fish very similar to a smelt, found on the coast of Newfoundland, and much used as a bait for cod.
1620. J. Mason, New-found-land, 5, June hath Capline a fish much resembling Smeltes in forme and eating.
1623. Whitbourne, Newfoundland, 8. The Riuers … are stored with … Launce, Capelin, Cod, and Trouts. Ibid., 89. Capeling.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Capelan.
1823. in W. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), I. 397. Innumerable small fry slip down unperceived, like caplins down the throats of the sharks.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. III. i. 102. Other Gadoids,… the Haddock, the Capalan.
1861. L. L. Noble, Icebergs, 53. They [four or five whales] were feeding upon the capelin.
