scomber

See also: Scomber

English

Etymology 1

Noun

scomber

1. Alternative form of scumber

Verb

scomber (third-person singular simple present scombers, present participle scombering, simple past and past participle scombered)

1. Alternative form of scumber

Etymology 2

From Latin scomber.

Noun

scomber (plural scombers)

1. A fish of the genus Scomber.
   • 1853 March, “The Last of the Scombers”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume XLVII, number CCLXXIX, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], pages 260–262:

     […] the familiar name by which all scombers are known at Montpelier being the peis d’avril, or April fish. […] All times and tongues have agreed to call the first of these scombers by some name allusive to the warlike weapon carried in his mouth—viz., a sword, several feet in length, finely attenuated in front, and, to the dismay of the denizens of the deep, of a temper like that of its owner, not to be trusted or trifled with. […] The size and strength of these fish are as remarkable as their pugnacity; the power, as in most scombers, residing in the muscles moving the tail.

   • 1871, E[ugène] Pégot-Ogier, translated by Frances Locock, “General Scientific Observations”, in The Fortunate Isles; or, The Archipelago of the Canaries. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley and Son, […], pages 230–231:

     […] large carongues and scombers are found in the Canarian seas, and the similarity of several species is most remarkable.

   • 1911 December, Charles F. Allen, “Fish and Fishing: A School of Tuna off Navesink”, in Sports Afield, volume XLVII, number 6, page 525, column 2:

     All of the Scombers are of the most highly organized order of fishes, most. of them being without air-bladders, being so adapted to their native element that they have no need of them.

   • 1935, Louis Roule, translated by Conrad Elphinstone, Fishes and Their Ways of Life, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., pages 24–25, 32, and 232:

     The tail with its caudal fin, set vertically, is able to effect a rapid burst of speed which allows the fish to make a dash after its prey, but it cannot keep up this speed for long. At the rear it acts as a scull, beating the water first to right and then to left, and so pushing the body forward. Only some sharks and the large mackerel or scombers are capable of using this tool with an effect comparable to that attained by the cetaceans. […] The whole construction of these large scombers is designed to make of them, like fast ships, the greyhounds of the sea. […] The case of the tunny and the large scombers, whose massive bodies become considerably warmer when they are swimming, is an exception.

   • 1947, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney, “The Læstrygonians”, in The Portable Russian Reader: A Collection Newly Translated from Classical and Present-Day Authors, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, pages 409, 412, and 425:

     Scombers are being fried or marinated in every house. […] Small scombers will pass through the wide mesh of the walls but become entangled in the inner meshes; […] Kolya and I were drawing up a net we had put out for scomber the evening before, at right angles to the shore. The catch was a thoroughly poor one. About a hundred scomber were tangled in the meshes of the net, five or six ruff, a few dozen golden-hued, fat little crucians and a very great deal of jellied, nacreous medusae, looking like enormous, colorless mushroom-heads, each with a multitude of stems.

   • 1994, Tai-Sheng Chiu, Kwang-Zong Chang, “Comparison of Ichthyoplankton Fauna in Northern Taiwan Strait During Winter and Spring”, in Acta Zoologica Taiwanica, volume 5, number 1, Taipei: National Taiwan University, pages 23–32:

     The abundant ichthyoplankton in spring are contributed from larval and early juvenile species of highly commercial fishery concerns, such as scads and scombers. […] Scads and scombers are less abundant in the southern part of the Strait, relative to the northern Strait.

Anagrams

• combers, recombs

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek σκόμβρος (skómbros), possibly ultimately of Pre-Greek origin.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈskom.ber/, [ˈs̠kɔmbɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈskom.ber/, [ˈskɔmber]

Noun

scomber m (genitive scombrī); second declension

1. mackerel

Declension

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	scomber	scombrī
Genitive	scombrī	scombrōrum
Dative	scombrō	scombrīs
Accusative	scombrum	scombrōs
Ablative	scombrō	scombrīs
Vocative	scomber	scombrī

Descendants

• → English: scomber
• → Italian: sgombro
• → Spanish: escombro
• → Translingual: Scomber

References

• “scomber”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “scomber”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• scomber in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.