Quick links

pew

[< F pieu > L palus pole]

Esp. Nfld

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

a long-handled, pronged device used for forking fish from boat to wharf or stage.

Quotations

1835

Also a large species of fish, called the horse-mackarel, resembling that fish in every particular, but ten feet in length, had been killed here last summer, by a girl with a "pew," or fork used for throwing fish from the boats on the "stages."

1861

The fish are not taken out by hand, but by an instrument called a "pew," which is a prong with one point. Should a fish be damaged in the body, it is deteriorated in value; so great care is taken to stick the pew through the head of the cod, and thus to land it on the stagehead, where it undergoes the first process of salting.

1883

. . . the fish are flung one by one from the boat to the floor of the stage, with an instrument resembling a small pitchfork, and called a "pew."