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admiral
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
n. — Hist.
a title given to the captain of the first fishing vessel to reach a harbor on the Newfoundland coast each year, a title that carried with it authority as magistrate for the fishery in the area of his jurisdiction, a form of justice that endured from the early seventeenth century until the late eighteenth.
Quotations
1620
And thus they doe, striuing to be there first in a Harbour, to obtaine the name of Admirall that yeere.
1907
The democratic English, however, made the admiral change about each week so that each master in turn became ruler.
1965
Justice might have been won by the presentation if . . . a flowing bowl of calabogus, a favorite drink of the admirals. . . .