shotten
Americanadjective
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(of fish, especially herring) having recently ejected the spawn.
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Obsolete. (of a bone) dislocated.
adjective
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(of fish, esp herring) having recently spawned
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archaic worthless or undesirable
Etymology
Origin of shotten
1175–1225; Middle English, past participle of shoot 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
It has sometimes in the end of words a sound obscure, and scarcely perceptible, as open, shapen, shotten, thistle, participle, metre, lucre.
From A Grammar of the English Tongue by Samuel Johnson
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
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
They two bold children shotten together, All day theirself in rank, Until they came to black water, And over it laid a plank.
From Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series by Frank Sidgwick
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
