split v Cp NID ~ v 1 a for sense 1.
1 To cut around the backbone of a cod-fish, opening the fish for salting and drying; to remove the gills and guts of a herring or mackerel; cp GIB v.
[1663] 1963 YONGE 57 When the header had done his work, he thrusts the fish to the other side of the table, where sits a ... splitter, who with a strong knife splits it abroad, and with a back stroke cuts off the bone... There are some that will split incredibly swift, 24 score in half an hour. [1680] 1976 HEAD 80 They split and Salt Theyr fish on Shore. [1766] 1971 BANKS 134 [The splitter's] business is to split the fish beginning at the head and opening it Down to the tail. At the next cut he takes out the Larger Part of the Back Bone. 1819 ANSPACH 431 The splitter ... cuts [the fish] with the right hand, beginning at the nape down by the sound-bone to the navel, and giving the knife a little turn to keep as close to the bone as possible, he continues cutting to the end of the tail; then raising the bone with the knife, he pushes the fish so split into the drudge-barrow. 1837 BLUNT 15 A little south of the Cape is Shoe Cove, a place used in bad weather for splitting and salting fish. 1902 HOWLEY MS Reminiscences 8 At Boutitou the boats had just come in from the traps, some with considerable fish and the crews were busy nearly all night splitting it. [1915] 1930 COAKER 103 The way this fish should be cleaned: First the slub be removed before splitting, then split the fish, remove the inside also the blood from the bone, then a slight slit each side of the bone, the bone should not be removed as it causes the fish to break if taken away. 1937 Seafisheries of Nfld 45 In the dry salting method the fish, having been split, are placed with the flesh upwards side by side, usually head to tail alternately, until a space in the curing stage about three feet in width and varying from four to twelve feet in length is covered; dry salt is then spread over the surface of the fish. T 43-64 Well, the gut had to come out o' the fish an' the head had to come off, an' then the splitter would split it down one side o' the backbone [and] up the other, and he was ready then for washing an' saltin'. 1973 COOK 42 Pete splits, guts and removes the sound bones of the fish.
2 Phr split the fish: game in which a person is put on a table and undergoes in mime all the things a fish undergoes when it is split (T 245-66).
