Mackerel
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Certain smaller edible fish, principally true mackerel and Spanish mackerel in family Scombridae, often speckled, countable, uncountable
- 2 A pimp; also, a bawd. obsolete
"1483, William Caxton, Magnus Cato, quoted in James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, vol. 2, publ. by John Russell Smith (1847), page 536. […] nyghe his hows dwellyd a maquerel or bawde […]"
- 3 any of various fishes of the family Scombridae wordnet
- 4 Certain smaller edible fish, principally true mackerel and Spanish mackerel in family Scombridae, often speckled,; typically Scomber scombrus in the British isles. countable, uncountable
"[…] you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel."
- 5 flesh of very important usually small (to 18 in) fatty Atlantic fish wordnet
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- 6 A true mackerel, any fish of tribe Scombrini (Scomber spp., Rastrelliger spp.) countable, uncountable
- 7 Certain other similar small fish in families Carangidae, Gempylidae, and Hexagrammidae. countable, uncountable
- 8 A regular pattern, similar to fish scales, of undulating small clouds with sky visible between them. attributive, countable, uncountable
"a mackerel sky"
Example
More examples"Today's breakfast was dried mackerel and miso soup."
Etymology
From Middle English mackerell, macrell, macrelle, makarell, makerel, makerell, makerelle, makrel, makrell, makyrelle, from Old French maquerel. Further origin unknown.
From Middle English makerel, maquerel, from Old French maquerel, from Middle Dutch makelare, makelaer (“broker”) (> makelaar (“broker, peddler”)). See also French maquereau.
Related phrases
More for "mackerel"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.