What does "finnock" mean?

A young sea trout, in the year after they return to fresh water after their smolt migration stage.

What is a synonym for "finnock"?

Common synonyms include: harvester, herling, school peal, school peel.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A young sea trout, in the year after they return to fresh water after their smolt migration stage. Scotland
"Previous to their descent, I caught in all, not far from the tideway, about half-a-dozen finnocks, on two or three different occasions."

"Previous to their descent, I caught in all, not far from the tideway, about half-a-dozen finnocks, on two or three different occasions."

A possible anglicisation of Scottish Gaelic fionnag (“young salmon”). Compare fionnag (“whiting”), a calque of English whiting, from fionn (“white”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.