capelin

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French capelan, from Provençal and Old Occitan capelan, from Late Latin cappellānus (“chaplain”). Doublet of chaplain.

1. A fish of species Mallotus villosus, a type of smelt found in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

   “The birds are spread - so that we can see what they are like; and the men catching capelins are elevated up out of the umiak, where they practically float on the gunwale, so that we can perceive that they are the main figures and see their work-movements (fig. 250).”

   “Capelin are widely distributed in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, and Sea Okhotsk, and along the Kamchatka Peninsula.”