shotten

American  

[shot-n] / ˈʃɒt n /

adjective

1. (of fish, especially herring) having recently ejected the spawn.

2. Obsolete. (of a bone) dislocated.

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shotten British  

/ ˈʃɒtən /

adjective

1. (of fish, esp herring) having recently spawned

2. archaic worthless or undesirable

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Etymology

Origin of shotten

1175–1225; Middle English, past participle of shoot ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

shotten

Go thy ways,     old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be not     forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.

From The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt: if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.

From McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader by William Holmes McGuffey

Our Death will then soon set us where we cannot be reach'd by the Fist of Wickedness; and where the Perfect cannot be shotten at.

From The Wonders of the Invisible World Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England, to which is added A Farther Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches by Cotton Mather

Forth then shotten these children two, And they did never lin, Until they came to merry Churchlees, To merry Churchlees within.

From Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series by Frank Sidgwick

Now when their father, who was a man shotten in years, saw that his two eldest sons hated their brother, he feared lest after his death trouble should befall him from them.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 06 by Sir Richard Francis Burton