whitebait

[hwahyt-beyt, wahyt-]

noun, plural white·bait.

a young sprat or herring.
Cookery. any small, delicate fish cooked whole without being cleaned, especially the sprat.

Origin of whitebait

1750–60; white + bait, so called from use as bait

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for whitebait

Historical Examples of whitebait

Here the ministry at the close of the session has its annual whitebait dinner.
England, Picturesque and Descriptive
Joel Cook
Whitebait are no longer kept in the Round Pond at Kensington.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893
Various
Pay for you at Blackwall, and the whitebait will disappear by the thousand.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848
Various
The dinner was abominably long, but the whitebait was excellent.
Letters to an Unknown
Prosper Mrime
Asked for whitebait, he destroyed the illusion in which we had come at a blow.
London Films
William Dean Howells

British Dictionary definitions for whitebait

whitebait

noun

the young of herrings, sprats, etc, cooked and eaten whole as a delicacy
any of various small silvery fishes, such as Galaxias attenuatus of Australia and New Zealand and Allosmerus elongatus of North American coastal regions of the Pacific

Word Origin for whitebait

C18: from its formerly having been used as bait

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012