Reference > Brewer’s Dictionary > Shotten Herring.

 Shot Window (A)Shoulder. 
CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
 
Shotten Herring.
 
A lean spiritless creature, a Jack-o’-Lent, like a herring that has shot or ejected its spawn. Herrings gutted and dried are so called also.   1
       
“Though they like shotten-herrings are to see,
Yet such tall souldiers of their teeth they be,
That two of them, like greedy cormorants,
Devour more then sixe honest Protestants.”
       
Taylor’s Workes, iii. 5.
 


 Shot Window (A)Shoulder. 

 
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