Also 8 tripam, 9 tripang, trepong. [Malay trīpang (Yule). The early form tripam was app. from Fr.] A marine animal, an echinoderm (Holothuria edulis), called also sea-cucumber, sea-slug, sea-swallow, or bêche-de-mer, eaten as a luxury by the Chinese.
1783. Justamond, trans. Raynal’s Hist. Indies, I. 277. [Celebes] furnishes … tripam, a species of mushroom, which increases in value in proportion to the roundness of it’s form, and the blackness of it’s colour.
1793. J. Trapp, Rochon’s Voy. Madagascar, etc., 390. The tripam is a little spungy plant without root, and like a mushroom…. It grows in great profusion in the island of Celebes.
1802. Capt. Elmore, in Naval Chron., VIII. 380. Sea swallow (called beach de mar by the Portuguese, and trepong by the Malays).
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 188/2. The tripang swala, or sea-slug.
1879. Wright, Anim. Life, 572. So far as we know, but one species is used for food. This, the Trepang of the Chinese (Holothuria edulis), is found in the Indian Ocean.
b. attrib. and Comb., as trepang-fisher, -fishery.
1846. J. L. Stokes, Discov. Australia, I. vii. 211. These lighter coloured people are Malays, captured from the Trepang fishers.
1878. P. L. Simmonds, Commerc. Prod. Sea, I. ix. 105. The trepang fishery of the Pacific and Eastern Seas.
1904. Howitt, Native Tribes S.E. Australia, i. 26. The trepang fishers … are the Bugis, a Malayan people, who form the principal nation of the Island of Celebes.
