Meaning of sea donkey | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The common name for various fish, especially the hake or the spadefish.
2. Someone or something that lives or works at sea and is similar in some way to a donkey, especially by performing humble tasks.
3. A term of opprobrium.

Examples

“The ectoparasitic isopod, Nerocila armata Dana, so common on the head of small Sea Donkey (Chaetodipterus faber) was also sometimes attached to Sea Trout fins or head.”

“Some of the fish commonly caught in the trawl off British Guiana were croaker, bangamary, sea trout, sea patwa, annafolk, sea donkey, pomfret, moonfish, mackerel, barracuda and blue fish”

“Other reports suggest a taste for marvels, at least in his audience: the peculiar anatomy of the “sea-donkey” or hake, which has its heart “in the middle of its gut” […]”

“The sea-donkey is allowed, but not the sea-ox; and you remember this by the following mark: the unclean (on earth?) is clean, while the clean is unclean.”

“There was an odd look of confusion aloft, or rather let me describe it as a want of that sort of precision which a sailor's eye would seek for and instantly miss, even in the commonest old sea-donkey of a collier.”

“Looking at me you would think that I am just an old 'sea donkey'; you would never have thought that I have shaken hands with the very Emperor of Great Britain!”

“ON316446 arrived at Somes in 1948 to her proud new launchmaster Ken Weir, his wife bestowing the island's original name Matiu on the vessel. Matiu had 44 years to go as sea donkey for the quarantine station and its islanders.”

“The dolphin is struggling, trudging as if it were a burro trying to go up a rocky incline—a sea donkey.”

“You've more brass than a highwayman, you fat-headed sea-donkey!”

“You fat-headed son of a sea donkey! You portentous prig! You are a nice trainer for hopeful ingenuous youth!”

“I mean, there she was on the radio this morning – you heard her – finally admitting what a bet-down, gin-soaked, sea-donkey of a mother she was to me growing up.”

“You with a cat's eye and baboon's hair, you white-assed sea donkey from across seven rivers!”

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