small a Cp LARGE.
1 In various grades or culls of dried and salted cod: fish of a certain specified size, freq with designation of quality or 'cure': ~ MADEIRA, ~ MERCHANTABLE. ~ THIRDS1, WEST a: ~ INDIA.
[1909] 1930 COAKER 7 No 1 small same qualifications as in No 1 large, from under [14] inches ... to 18 inches. 1955 Nfld Fisheries Board No 39 Small fish 12" to 18". T 36-64 Extra large from twenty one, small from fourteen to eighteen... An' when you sell this fish for market there used to be choice, large an' small; and 'extra large'; 'large'; 'small'; 'small Madeira'; 'small West Indee'; 'small thirds'; 'small merchantable.' T 410-67 There was small Madeira, large Madeira; small thirds an' large thirds; small West Indee; tomcods ... Italian—too many grades for me!
2 Designating a stage of an animal's growth: ~ BEDLAMER, ~ MIDDLER/MEDLER.
T 84-64 This year they're a bellamer—small bellamer, an' the next year they're a big bellamer. [1783] 1792 CARTWRIGHT iii, 22 The second [year beavers are called] small medlers.
3 With nouns forming a comb used attrib: ~ BOAT, ~ seed.
1927 DOYLE (ed) 71 "The Newfoundland Fishermen": The small boat men though easy, / Their toil to those mentioned before, / What man dare say they are lazy / Or sleep away time on the shore. 1963 Nfld Record ii, 15 No sensible man would wish today to incur these [perils] in the same degree as men did for so long in the small-boat fishery on the fishing banks of the Northwest Atlantic. 1967 FIRESTONE 107 Small seed beds are made by first turning over all the ground to be used with mattocks and shovels.
