Forms: 4 kunger, 5–7 cunger, congre, (5 cungur, -gyre, -gger, congur(e, -ggyre, 6 congar, coonger), 6– conger. [a. OF. congre:—L. congr-um (conger), ad. Gr. γόγγρος, all in same sense.]
1. A large species of eel living in salt water and attaining a length of from six to ten feet; it is caught for food, being common on the coasts of Britain and other European countries, but rare along the American coast of the Atlantic; the sea-eel.
[1213. Rot. Chart. (Rolls), 194. Habeant totam emptionem mulvellorum et congruorum … per totam Corn[ubiam].]
c. 1300. Sat. People Kildare, ii., in E. E. P. (1862), 153. Mani grete kunger swimmeþ abute þi fete.
c. 1325. Coer de L., 3515. Fysch, flesch, salmoun and cungyr Off us non schal dye for hungyr.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIII. xxvi. (1495), 462. The Congre hath many wyles and is wytte and wyly of getynge of meete.
c. 1425. Eng. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 641/38. Hic congruus, a conggyre.
14[?]. Black Bk. of Admiralty, II. 103. Also of purpais, samoun, cungger, and turbut.
1516. in Lodge, Illustr. Brit. Hist. (1791), I. 13. I have sent by this berer … x pasties of congars.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. iv. 266. Eates Conger and Fennell.
1602. Marston, Antonio’s Rev., II. i. If … a mermaid be half a fish and halfe cunger.
1676. Walton, Angler, I. xiii. (1791), 185. The mighty Conger, taken often in Severn about Gloucester.
1791. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Rights of Kings, Wks. 1812, II. 426. And snatch a wriggling Conger from the flood.
1881. F. Day, Fishes Gt. Brit., II. 251. The conger is very sensible to atmospheric changes.
2. Applied in abuse to a man.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. iv. 58. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
3. Comb. Conger-doust, -douce, dial. [doust dust, powder], conger dried and powdered for making fish soup; conger-head, a term of abuse.
1630. Dekker, 2nd Pt. Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 140. She nibbled but wud not swallow the hooke, because the Cunger-head her husband was by.
1808. Polwhele, Cornish Voc., Conger-dousts.
1865. Couch, Brit. Fishes, IV. 345.
1880. E. Cornwall Gloss., s.v., Conger-doust, Up to the beginning of the present century, a large trade existed between Cornwall and Catholic countries in Conger-douce.
