quahog

English

Etymology

Most often thought to be from Narragansett poquaûhock (“hard clam”), or perhaps from pohkeni (“dark”) +‎ hogki (“shell”). Alternatively from Mohegan-Pequot p'quaghhaug (“hard clam”) or another Algonquian language.

Pronunciation

Noun

quahog (plural quahogs)

  2. An edible clam with a hard shell found along the Atlantic Coast of North America, from species Mercenaria mercenaria, formerly Venus mercenaria.
    Synonyms: hard clam, round clam, Mercenaria mercenaria
    Hypernyms: clam < mollusk < invertebrate < animal < organism
    Hyponyms: countneck, peanut, littleneck, topneck, cherrystone
    2. The largest size of such an edible clam, generally considered only fit for use in chowders and other clam dishes.
      Synonym: chowder clam
      Hypernyms: hard clam, round clam, Mercenaria mercenaria < clam < mollusk < invertebrate < animal < organism
      Coordinate terms: countneck, peanut, littleneck, topneck, cherrystone
  4. A similar edible clam, of species Arctica islandica, found along coasts around the North Atlantic, generally in deeper waters.
    Synonyms: ocean quahog, black quahog, mahogany clam, Icelandic cyprine

Alternative forms

  • quahaug (slightly more common until the 1950s, now uncommon)
  • quohog (regional US; uncommon nationally)
  • cohog (regional US; uncommon nationally)

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

quahog (third-person singular simple present quahogs, present participle quahogging, simple past and past participle quahogged)

  1. (intransitive) To dig for quahogs.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 “quahog”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 “quahog”, in Collins English Dictionary.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 “quahog”, in Collins English Dictionary; from Michael Agnes, editor, Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th edition, Cleveland, Oh.: Wiley, 2010, →ISBN.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 “quahog”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Linguistic Atlas of New England (1939)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “quahog”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volumes IV (P–Simulant), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.: "quahog"
  • “quahog”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.