sb. Also 7 squide. [Of obscure origin.]
1. One or other of various species of cephalopods belonging to the family Loliginidæ, Teuthididæ, or Sepiidæ, more esp. to the genus Loligo; a calamary, cuttle, or pen-fish: a. With a and pl.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 747. Smelts and Squids … come on shore in great abundance, fleeing from the deuouring cod.
1620. Mason, Newfoundland, 5. What should I speake of … Squides a rare kind of fish at his mouth squirting mattere forth like Inke.
1791. Phil. Trans., LXXXI. 44. I send you … some of the bills of the fish called Squids (which are supposed to be the food of spermaceti whales).
1809. Naval Chron., XXI. 22. Squids, a squalid kind of fish.
1863. Couch, Brit. Fishes, II. 46. From one example I took two Gobies and a Launce: from another a Squid, (Loligo media), five inches in length.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 27. Hunting for crabs, shrimps, squids, and other invertebrate animals.
b. With the, in generic use.
1839. T. Beale, Hist. Sperm Whale, 34. An animal of the cuttle-fish kind, called by sailors the ‘squid,’ and by naturalists the ‘sepia octopus.’
1859. Huxley, in Macm. Mag., I. 145. ‘Loligo,’ the squid of modern seas, appears in the lias, or at the bottom of the mesozoic series.
1880. in Morris, Austral Eng. (1898), 435. The squid (Sepioteuthis australis) is highly appreciated.
c. Without article, esp. as a bait or food-stuff.
1865. Thoreau, Cape Cod, vi. 107. Their bait was a bullfrog or several small frogs in a bunch, for want of squid.
1880. Miss Bird, Japan, II. 213. These lights are much used in fishing, specially for squid.
1883. Cassell’s Fam. Mag., July, 469/1. Neat little cuttle-fish … are dried whole, for inland carriage, and others are salted and sold as squid.
2. With distinguishing terms, denoting various species.
1840. F. D. Bennett, Whaling Voy., I. 269. The flying-squid rose from the sea in large flocks.
1851. S. P. Woodward, Mollusca, I. (1856), 73. The sailors call them ‘sea-arrows’ or ‘flying squid’ from their habit of leaping out of the water.
1861. Chambers’s Encycl., II. 724/2. The Hook-squids of the South Seas.
3. a. A squid-bill (see quot.).
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), I. 334. The mass is usually loaded with hard bony fragments, by the seamen called squids, which are the beaks of the cuttle-fish, on which the whale is known to feed.
b. Bone-squid, an artificial bait made to imitate a squid.
1883. J. A. Henshall, in Century Mag., 383/1. The black bass has an irresistible impulse to snap at any brightly colored or shining object in motion, whether spoon-bait, bone-squid, or other like lure.
4. attrib. and Comb., as squid-beak, -bill, -family, line, school, -tentacle; squid-catching, -jigging; squid fish, = sense 1; squid-hound, jig, -jigger, -thrower (see quots.).
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 18. *Squid-beaks enough to fill two water-buckets were taken from the stomach. Ibid., 11, note. As *squid-bills are sometimes found in the lumps of ambergrease, it may be inferred, that ambergrease is some of the excrement from squid-food.
1881. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 170. In many stations more than a dozen boats are engaged in *Squid-catching.
1883. in Morris, Austral Eng. (1898), 435. None of the *Squid family seems to be sought after, although certain kinds are somewhat abundant in our waters.
1725. Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 262. The Sperma Ceti Whale, besides other Fish, feeds much upon a small Fish that has a Bill; our Fishermen call them *Squid Fish.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 11, note. Squid-fish, one of the Newfoundland baits for cod, are sometimes in Newfoundland cast ashore in quantities.
1812. Southey, Omniana, I. 274. Accounts of the *squid-hound from people who have been on the southern whale fishery.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 425. The Striped Bass…. Large sea-going individuals are sometimes known in New England by the names ‘Green-head’ and ‘Squid-hound.’
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 195. *Squid jigs used by Grand Bank Cod fishermen in the capture of squid for bait.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2295/2. *Squid-jigger, a trolling-hook for catching squids for bait.
1881. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 710. The fishermen go out in punts *Squid-jigging of an evening, to catch bait required for the next day’s fishing.
1867. F. H. Ludlow, Little Brothers, 96. He can man his main-sheet with one hand, feel his *squid line with the other, and tend his tiller between his knees.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 201. The *‘Squid School’ of Nantucket and other parts of the coast.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous, 145. A little shiny piece of *squid-tentacle at the tip of a clam-baited hook.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2295/2. *Squid-thrower, a device … for throwing a fishing-line seaward, carrying the squid-bait.
Hence Squid v. intr., to fish with squid-bait. U.S.
a. 1859. in Bartlett, Dict. Amer. (1859), 442. The bluefish is taken by squidding in swift tideways.
1894. Outing, XXIV. 54/1. The fly-fisher scoffs at squidding, trolling, bait-fishing, spearing and at … everything save fly-fishing.
