throatern.
/ˈθrəʊtə/, U.S. /ˈθroʊdər/ΚΠ
1840 Bell's Life in London 14 June Lane met his adversary and gave him a throater; ditto on his snout.
1845 Era 16 Mar. Gold's left alighted like a twenty-four pounder on his antagonist's throat, which felled him... The throater had proved a pungent dose.
2. Fishing. Chiefly North American. A person who prepares caught fish for gutting by cutting the throat and slitting the belly up to the gills (cf. throat v. 1b). Also: a knife used for this purpose; = throating knife n. at throating n. Compounds 2. Now chiefly historical.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > food manufacture and preparation > preparation for table or cooking > preparation of seafood > [noun] > beheader of fish
header1622
throater1846
1846 Knickerbocker 27 511 The ‘throater’, the ‘header’, the ‘splitter’ take stations at the speedily-erected table.
1865 All Year Round 24 June 510/1 The hands are divided into throaters, splitters, headers, salters, and packers.
1891 Cent. Dict. Throater, a knife used to cut the throats of fish; also, one who uses the throater as one of a gang of men who perform different parts of the process of dressing fish.
1922 W. E. Gibbs Fishing Industry v. 72 The crew is divided into splitting gangs, each consisting of three men—the throater, the gutter, and the splitter.
1986 W. Clement Struggle to Organize ii. 21 A typical crew would consist of the skipper, cook, salter, header, throater, flunkey, and fourteen fishermen.
2009 J. H. Ellis Ruinous Unhappy War xi. 180 Both [men] carried throaters, or fish knives.
2013 J. Halsey Bluenose Adventure 13 I'm the throater—I takes the fish out of the box and cuts it from throat to tail.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2017; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1840