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Mackerel sky   /mˈækərəl skaɪ/   Listen
noun
Mackerel  n.  (Zool.) Any species of the genus Scomber of the family Scombridae, and of several related genera. They are finely formed and very active oceanic fishes. Most of them are highly prized for food. Note: The common mackerel (Scomber scombrus), which inhabits both sides of the North Atlantic, is one of the most important food fishes. It is mottled with green and blue. The Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus), of the American coast, is covered with bright yellow circular spots.
Bull mackerel, Chub mackerel. (Zool.) See under Chub.
Frigate mackerel. See under Frigate.
Horse mackerel. See under Horse.
Mackerel bird (Zool.), the wryneck; so called because it arrives in England at the time when mackerel are in season.
Mackerel cock (Zool.), the Manx shearwater; so called because it precedes the appearance of the mackerel on the east coast of Ireland.
Mackerel guide. (Zool.) See Garfish (a).
Mackerel gull (Zool.) any one of several species of gull which feed upon or follow mackerel, as the kittiwake.
Mackerel midge (Zool.), a very small oceanic gadoid fish of the North Atlantic. It is about an inch and a half long and has four barbels on the upper jaw. It is now considered the young of the genus Onos, or Motella.
Mackerel plow, an instrument for creasing the sides of lean mackerel to improve their appearance.
Mackerel shark (Zool.), the porbeagle.
Mackerel sky, or Mackerel-back sky, a sky flecked with small white clouds; a cirro-cumulus. See Cloud. "Mackerel sky and mare's-tails Make tall ships carry low sails."



mackerel sky  n.  A sky filled with rows of cirrocumulus or small altocumulus clouds.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mackerel sky" Quotes from Famous Books



... Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds light. The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. Over the western hills beyond the harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of sunset below. The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden clouds. The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms. Beyond her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... mackerel sky is a name given to an assemblage of cirrus clouds which are thought to imitate the barred markings on the side of a mackerel. Mares' ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... fine sunset on the night Paul and Miss Trevor first met, and she had lingered on the headland beyond Noel's Cove to delight in it. The west was splendid in daffodil and rose; away to the north there was a mackerel sky of little fiery golden clouds; and across the water straight from Miss Trevor's feet ran a sparkling path of light to the sun, whose rim had just touched the throbbing edge of the purple sea. Off to the left were softly swelling violet hills and beyond the sandshore, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... manner, "A statue," she said, "of the chased Diana; Though who it was chased her, or whether they Caught her or not, she could, really, not say." A carriage with curtains of yellow satin— A coat-of-arms with these rare devices: "A mackerel sky and the starry Pisces—" And underneath, in the purest fish-latin, If fishibus flyabus They may reach ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... deg. below zero (-23 deg. C.). This evening there was a strange appearance of aurora borealis—white, shining clouds, which I thought at first must be lit up by the moon, but there is no moon yet. They were light cumuli, or cirro-cumuli, shifting into a brightly shining mackerel sky. I stood and watched them as long as my thin clothing permitted, but there was no perceptible pulsation, no play of flame; they sailed quietly on. The light seemed to be strongest in the southeast, where there were also dark clouds to be seen. Hansen said ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen



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