Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
MUD, n.1, v.1 Sc. usages:
I. n. Combs.: ‡1. mud fish, codfish preserved by being salted wet in bulk in the hold of the fishing vessel (Sh. 1866 Edm. Gl. 1914 Angus Gl.; Abd. 1919 T.S.D.C.; Cai. 1963). The name seems to be due to the fact that the salt removed slime and pigment from the fish, and produced a kind of muddy brine, making the flesh itself brown and muddy-coloured; 2. mud-flounder, the flounder, Platichthys flesus (Sc. 1905 A. R. Forbes Gaelic Names 364). Also muddack, id. (Mry. Firth 1930 Fishery Board Gl., Mry. 1963); 3. mudwart, the mudwort, Limosella aquatica.1. Sc. 1733 P. Lindsay Interest Scot. 217:
Few private Families understand the right Manner of freshning those Mud-fish, which lessens their Price at the Home-markets; but if a right bred Fishmonger . . . who understood the best Method of bleaching and freshning of those Fish, was to set up his Trade in this City, he could not fail to make good Business of it.Ork. 1769 Caled. Mercury (2 Oct.):
The sloop . . . is completely loaded with cod fish, salted in bulk, which method of curing is best known by the name of mud-fish.Sc. 1798 Edb. Weekly Jnl. (4 April) I. 105:
Here the mode of curing is to be specified, that is, whether the fish was cured in the vessel's hold as mud fish.Cai. 1884 Crofters' Comm. Evid. III. 2383:
It is chiefly herring we cure, but there is cod curing going on here every winter, and they send them up in the state of what they call mud fish to the London market.3. Slk. 1820 Hogg Poems (1874) 290:
His breath it gaed out, and the water gaed in. With drumble and mudwart impure.
†II. v. Ppl.adj. muded, of cod fish: salted in barrels.Inv. 1720 Steuart Letter-Bk. (S.H.S.) 109:
However, doe presume to give you this truble to advise you that in this Country I can at present buy a good quantity of wet Cod fish muded so as to carry in barrls without pickle.
