blacktail

English

Etymology

Compound of black +‎ tail.

Noun

blacktail (plural blacktails)

1. A fish: the ruffe or pope (Gymnocephalus cernua)
   • 1601, Pliny the Elder, translated by Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World, London: A. Islip, published 1634, page 452:

     […] the blacke taile Perch [which ſome take for a Ruffe, others for a ſea Breame:]

   • 1706, Edward Phillips, compiler, J[ohn] K[ersey the younger], “Melarunus”, in The New World of Words: Or, Universal English Dictionary. […], 6th edition, London: […] J. Phillips, […]; N. Rhodes, […]; and J. Taylor, […], →OCLC:

     Melarunus, the Black-tail, a kind of Perch of Ruff, a Fiſh; it alſo taken for a Sea-bream: […]

   • 1912, Harry Thurston Peck, The Standard Illustrated Book of Facts, New York, N.Y.: Syndicate Publishing Company, page 764:

     A perch-like fish of European waters, the blacktail, striped or stone perch, is also known as a ruff or ruffe.

2. A black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), of California and Oregon.
3. A mule deer, of the Rocky Mountains.
4. Certain fish with black tails:
   1. (UK) Salmo trutta
   2. (South Africa, Namibia) Diplodus capensis, Diplodus sargus
   3. (Jamaica) Haemulon carbonarium

Derived terms

• blacktail buckbill eel (Saurenchelys fierasfer)
• blacktail butterflyfish (Chaetodon austriacus)
• blacktail comber (Serranus atricauda)
• blacktail humbug (Dascyllus melanurus)
• blacktail pike-conger (Hoplunnis diomediana)
• blacktail redhorse (Moxostoma poecilurum)
• blacktail reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos)
• blacktail shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos)
• blacktail shiner (Cyprinella venusta)
• blacktail snapper (Lutjanus fulvus)
• blacktail triplefin (Enneapterygius spp. etc)

 

References

• “black-tail, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.