Orig. Sc. and north. Forms: α. 6 smolte, 6–7, 9 smolt, 9 smoult. β. 6–7 smowte, 7 smowt, 8–9 smout, 9 smoot. [Of doubtful origin: connection with SMOLT a. is not clear. A later form is smelt: see SMELT sb.1 3.]
1. A young salmon in the stage intermediate between the parr and the grilse, when it becomes covered with silvery scales and migrates to the sea for the first time.
α. 1469. Sc. Acts, Jas. III., c. 13 (1814), II. 96. All myllaris þat slais Smol[l]tis with crelis or ony vthir maner of way.
1510. Reg. Magni Sig. Scot., I. 730. Cum piscationibus, exceptis salmonibus, le keppir, et smolts.
c. 1575. Balfour’s Practicks (1754), 581. That thay tak smoltis or salmond in the miln-dammis.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., 97. Siclike smolts, sould not be taken … fra the middes of Aprill, to the nativitie of Saint John the Baptist.
1804. A. Hunter, Georg. Ess., II. 513. At this period of time they are from four to six inches in length only, being in some places called smoults.
1862. Act 25 & 26 Vict., c. 97 § 2. ‘Salmon’ shall … include … sea trout, bull trout, smolts, parr, and other migratory fish of the salmon kind.
1881. Standard, 10 Sept., 2/1. The migratory instinct does not occur till the young fish have become what are called ‘smolts.’
attrib. 1886. Encycl. Brit., XXI. 224. The young salmon, as soon as the smolt stage is reached, migrates down the rivers to the sea.
β. 1533–4. Act 25 Hen. VIII., c. 7. The yonge frie, spaume, or broode of any kinde of salmon, called lakspinkes, smowtes, or salmon pele.
1677. Johnson, in Ray’s Corr. (1848), 127. In Cumberland, the fishers,… after the first summer, call them free, or frie, as we [in Yorkshire] smowts or smelts, before they come to be lackes.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 242. The young [salmon] … gradually increase to the length of four or five inches, and are then termed Smelts or Smouts.
1803. J. Walker, in Prize Ess. Highland Soc., II. 351. They are called samlets,… but are generally known among our country people by the name of salmon smouts.
1866. C. W. Hatfield, Notices Doncaster, I. 99. The young of the salmon … was known only as a smolt or ‘smout.’
b. transf. A small person or thing.
1808. Jamieson, Smolt, metaph. used to denote a child.
1868. W. Shelley, Flowers, 199. Mamma’s pet, Smirkin’ smout.
1894. Heslop, Northumbld. Gloss., Smout...; anything small.
2. ‘A small trout of the speckled kind’ (Jamieson’s Sc. Dict. 1882 s.v. Smout).
