Alewife
Origin 1
ale + wife
Origin 2
Unknown. Possibly from aloof, the Indian name of a fish. See Winthrop on the culture of maize in America, “Phil Trans.†No. 142, p. 1065, and Baddam’s “Memoirs,†vol. ii. p. 131.
Possibly from allowes ("a type of shad"), from French alose ("shad"), from Old French, from Late Latin alausa, influenced by Etymology 1 due to large belly of the fish.
Noun
alewife
(plural alewives)- A North American fish, , of the herring family.
- A migrating North American fish, .
- 20 April 2014, Richard Conniff, Alewives are anadromous fish: Born in freshwater, they spend their lives in the ocean, returning annually to their birthplaces to spawn. Until colonial-era dams cut off their migration, hundreds of thousands of alewives would have come pouring into Rogers Lake USA every spring – and into other lakes like it along much of the Eastern Seaboard. Farmers used to apply them to their fields as fertilizer, and all along the coast, river herring festivals celebrated their arrival.
- Any of several species similar in appearance.
Synonyms
- (Clupea vernalis) , ,