troutling
nounEtymology From trout + -ling.
1
A young trout.
- 1747, Charles Jarvis (translator), The Life and Exploits of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, Dublin: Peter Wilson, Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter 2, p. 173, So there be many troutlings, answered Don Quixote they may serve me instead of one trout; for I would as willingly be paid eight single reals, as one real of eight: and the rather, because perhaps these troutlings are like veal, which is preferable to beef […]
- ‘[…] I dare say some trout in the river—hey?—the stream looks lively.’ ‘Middling, only—poor gray troutlings, Sir—not a soul cares to fish it but myself,’ he answered.1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, chapter 20, in The House by the Churchyard, London: Macmillan, published 1899, page 95:
2 more examples
- They winnowed the creek with basketwork weirs for every finger-long troutling that came down in it,1904, Mary Hunter Austin, The Basket Woman, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 27:
- ‘[…] Did this Choxy do anything else, except look at you like a pike at a troutling?’2012, Simon Brett, chapter 15, in Blotto, Twinks and the Bootlegger’s Moll, New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, published 2014, page 110:
- Synonyms
- troutlet