shad

Meaning

Noun

• Any one of several species of food fishes that make up the genus Alosa in the family Clupeidae, to which the herrings also belong; river herring.
• The bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix).

Origin

• From Old English sceadd, possibly from Celtic (compare Irish sgadan ("herring"), Welsh ysgadan) or from Scandinavian/North Germanic (compare dialectal Norwegian skadd ("small whitefish"), Old Norse skata), but the order of borrowing is unclear and the ultimate origin of these words is obscure.