herring

neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring

obsolete Not belonging to any suitable class of thing; unfit for any purpose or to be used by anyone. This older phrase appeared in a 16th-century proverb collection, where fish refers to food for monks (who abstained from meat), flesh refers to food for the general populace, and "good red herring" refers to inexpensive fish that would have been food for the poor. With crime as it is in this township, the law must be aggressive and dependable; unfortunately, the new constable is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring.See also: good, herring, neither, nor, red

red herring

Something irrelevant that diverts attention away from the main problem or issue. The candidate used the minor issue as a red herring to distract voters from the corruption accusations against him. The mystery writer is known for introducing red herrings to arouse the reader's suspicion of innocent characters.See also: herring, red

red herring

a piece of information or suggestion introduced to draw attention away from the real facts of a situation. (A red herring is a type of strong-smelling smoked fish that was once drawn across the trail of a scent to mislead hunting dogs and put them off the scent.) The detectives were following a red herring, but they're on the right track now. The mystery novel has a couple of red herrings that keep readers off guard.See also: herring, red

dead as a doornail

Also, dead as a dodo or herring . Totally or assuredly dead; also finished. For example, The cop announced that the body in the dumpster was dead as a doornail, or The radicalism she professed in her adolescence is now dead as a dodo, or The Equal Rights Amendment appears to be dead as a herring. The first, oldest, and most common of these similes, all of which can be applied literally to persons or, more often today, to issues, involves doornail, dating from about 1350. Its meaning is disputed but most likely it referred to the costly metal nails hammered into the outer doors of the wealthy (most people used the much cheaper wooden pegs), which were clinched on the inside of the door and therefore were "dead," that is, could not be used again. Dead as a herring dates from the 16th century and no doubt alludes to the bad smell this dead fish gives off, making its death quite obvious. Dead as a dodo, referring to the extinct bird, dates from the early 1900s. See also: dead, doornail

red herring

Something that draws attention away from the central issue, as in Talking about the new plant is a red herring to keep us from learning about downsizing plans . The herring in this expression is red and strong-smelling from being preserved by smoking. The idiom alludes to dragging a smoked herring across a trail to cover up the scent and throw off tracking dogs. [Late 1800s] See also: herring, red

dead as a doornail

1. If a person or animal is as dead as a doornail, they are completely dead. From the start of the movie it is clear that she will be as dead as a doornail by the time the credits roll.2. If something or someone is as dead as a doornail, they are no longer active or popular. My $2,500 computer was dead as a doornail. Nobody will hire him now. He's finished. Dead as a doornail. Note: It is not certain what `doornail' actually refers to. In medieval times, it may have been the plate or knob on a door which was hit by the knocker. It was thought that anything that was struck so often must have been dead. Alternatively, doornails may have been the thick nails which were set into outer doors. It is not clear why these nails should be described as `dead'. See also: dead, doornail

a red herring

COMMON If something is a red herring, it takes people's attention away from the main subject, problem, or situation that they should be considering. All the fuss about high pay for public employees is a bit of a red herring. The really serious money is to be found in private companies. A sighting of the missing woman in London turned out to be a red herring. Note: A red herring is a herring that has been soaked in salt water for several days, and then dried by smoke. Red herrings were sometimes used when training dogs to follow a scent. They were also sometimes used to distract dogs from the scent they were following during a hunt. See also: herring, red

dead as a doornail (or as mutton)

completely dead. A doornail was one of the large iron studs formerly often used on doors for ornamentation or for added strength; the word occurred in various alliterative phrases (e.g. deaf as a doornail and dour as a doornail ) but dead as a doornail is now the only one in common use.See also: dead, doornail

a red herring

something, especially a clue, which is or is intended to be misleading or distracting. This expression derives from the former practice of using the pungent scent of a dried smoked herring to teach hounds to follow a trail (smoked herrings were red in colour as a result of the curing process).See also: herring, red

(as) ˌdead as a ˈdoornail

(informal) completely deadSee also: dead, doornail

a red ˈherring

a fact, etc. which somebody introduces into a discussion because they want to take people’s attention away from the main point: Look, the situation in French agriculture is just a red herring. We’re here to discuss the situation in this country.This idiom comes from the custom of using the scent of a smoked, dried herring (which was red) to train dogs to hunt.See also: herring, red

dead as a doornail

Undoubtedly dead.See also: dead, doornail

dead as a doornail

Dead, unresponsive, defunct. This simile dates from the fourteenth century and the source of it has been lost. A doornail was either a heavy-headed nail for studding an outer door or the knob on which a door knocker strikes. One plausible explanation for the analogy to death is that it alluded to costly metal nails (rather than cheap wooden pegs), which were clinched and hence “dead” (could not be re-used). The expression was used in a fourteenth-century poem of unknown authorship, William of Palerne, and was still current when Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol (1843). There have been numerous similar proverbial comparisons—dead as a mackerel, dead as mutton, dead as a herring, dead as a stone—but this one, with its alliterative lilt, has survived longest.See also: dead, doornail

red herring

A diversionary tactic; a false or deliberately misleading trail. This expression comes from the use of strong-smelling smoked herrings as a lure to train hunting dogs to follow a scent. They also could be used to throw dogs off the scent, and it was this characteristic that was transferred to the metaphoric use of red herring. “Diverted from their own affairs by the red herring of foreign politics so adroitly drawn across the trail,” wrote W. F. Butler (Life of Napier, 1890).See also: herring, red

red herring

A misleading clue. Many people who know the phrase believe it came from the practice of game poachers laying scents of smoked herring (smoking accounted for the fish's reddish color) to throw gamekeepers and their dogs off the poachers' scent. However, etymologists discount that explanation, favoring instead that the phrase originated with an English writer who used the scent-laying image as a metaphor for a particular political plan. Mystery writers, readers, and critics use “red herring” to describe a piece of plotting intended to throw the reader off in deducing who-done-it. The financial world uses the phrase to mean a stock prospectus, not from any intent to deceive, but because the document has a red cover.See also: herring, red

herring

herring,

common name for members of the large, widely distributed family Clupeidae, comprising many species of marine and freshwater food fishes, including the sardine (Sardinia), the menhaden (Brevoortia and Ethmidium), and the shadshad,
fish of the genus Alosa, family Clupeidae (herring family), found in North America, Europe, and the Mediterranean. The American shad, A. sapidissima, is one of the largest (6 lb/2.
..... Click the link for more information. (Alosa). Herrings are relatively small but very abundant; they swim in huge schools, feeding on plankton and small animals and plants.

The adult Atlantic herring, Clupea harengus, found in temperate and cold waters of the North Atlantic, is about 1 ft (30 cm) long with silvery sides and blue back. It lays up to 30,000 eggs, which sink to the sea bottom and develop there; the young mature in three years. Other species lay their eggs in seaweed in shallow waters, and still others, the anadromous types, spawn in large rivers. Best known of these is the American shad, Alosa sapidissima. Another common anadromous herring is the alewife, A. pseudoharengus (14 in./37.5 cm), found along the Atlantic coast from Labrador to South Carolina and landlocked in Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes of New York. The alewife and the blueback herring, A. aestivalis, which is thinner and a little shorter with a blue-black back, and found from Nova Scotia to Florida, are collectively known as river herring.

The menhaden, also called bunker or pogy, are fish of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America; they are not valuable as food fish. The Atlantic menhaden was used by Native Americans to fertilize their cornfields (its name is the Narraganset word for "fertilizing"). The vast majority of the menhaden caught is converted into oil and fish meal for dietary supplements, fertilizer, and fish and animal feed; they are also used for bait. Menhaden are also important as food for other wild fishes.

The skipjack, a streamlined, steel-blue shad 15 in. long, is found in the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Its name, which is also applied to the much smaller and unrelated silversidessilversides,
common name for small shore fishes, belonging to the family Antherinidae, abundant in the warmer waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, and named for the silvery stripe on either side of the body.
..... Click the link for more information. and to a much larger and unrelated bonito (see tunatuna
or tunny,
game and food fishes, the largest members of the family Scombridae (mackerel family) and closely related to the albacore and bonito. They have streamlined bodies with two fins, and five or more finlets on the back.
..... Click the link for more information. ), describes any fish with a habit of leaping clear of the water.

Of the smaller food herrings and related species, the sardines are the most important. The true sardine from France, Spain, and Portugal is usually the young pilchard (Sardinia pilchardus) of Mediterranean and Atlantic coastal waters. The small European herrings (called sprats, or brislings) are cured without fermentation and are sold as Norwegian, or Swedish, anchovies and sardines. The name sardine is also applied to various small fish packed with oil or sauce in flat cans; the name sprat is sometimes applied to certain American species of commercial herring.

Sardine fishing and canning are an important industry in Maine, where small herrings are used, and in California, where the sardine is a pilchard of a genus (Sardinops) different from the European pilchard. The larger herrings are dried, smoked, salted, or pickled and sold in nearly all parts of the world under such names as bloaters, kippers, and red herrings. Many herring species have been overfished, and catch limits have been placed on some species. Herring species also fluctuate in response to natural conditions, e.g., warm water in the Pacific detrimentally affected the survival of young herring in the Canadian fisheries in the 1970s.

Herrings are classified in the phylum ChordataChordata
, phylum of animals having a notochord, or dorsal stiffening rod, as the chief internal skeletal support at some stage of their development. Most chordates are vertebrates (animals with backbones), but the phylum also includes some small marine invertebrate animals.
..... Click the link for more information. , subphylum Vertebrata, class Actinopterygii, order Clupeiformes, family Clupeidae.

herring

[′her·iŋ] (vertebrate zoology) The common name for fishes composing the family Clupeidae; fins are soft-rayed and have no supporting spines, there are usually four gill clefts, and scales are on the body but absent on the head.

herring

any marine soft-finned teleost fish of the family Clupeidae, esp Clupea harengus, an important food fish of northern seas, having an elongated body covered, except in the head region, with large fragile silvery scales

herring

her·ring

herring

her•ring

herring

herring

herring

herring

neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring

red herring

red herring

dead as a doornail

red herring

dead as a doornail

a red herring

dead as a doornail (or as mutton)

a red herring

(as) ˌdead as a ˈdoornail

a red ˈherring

dead as a doornail

dead as a doornail

red herring

red herring

herring

herring,

herring

herring

Herring

Her·ring

herring

Synonyms for herring

noun valuable flesh of fatty fish from shallow waters of northern Atlantic or Pacific

Related Words

noun commercially important food fish of northern waters of both Atlantic and Pacific

Synonyms

Related Words