Literary notes about Cod (AI summary)
The term cod takes on a remarkably varied life in literature. In some works it is employed in the literal sense—a fish whose weight and culinary traits populate vivid seafaring settings and the diets of common folk ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5])—while in others it functions as a playful or ironic quip, an exclamation, or even a cheeky insult ([6], [7], [8], [9]). Meanwhile, certain historical and scholarly texts use “Cod.” as an abbreviated reference, a bibliographic shorthand that hints at a broader classical context ([10], [11], [12], [13]). Even within the realms of diet and medicine, cod appears as a vital component, whether as the source of cod-liver oil or as a metaphor in popular aphorisms ([14], [15], [16]). Thus, across genres and centuries, the word cod evolves from a simple fish to a multifaceted literary device.
- We caught between us about twenty pounds of cod and lythe, and out in that dancing blue sea I took a cheerier view of things.
— from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan - The stockfish is a dried and cured cod, split open and with the head removed.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies - To follow this very poor soup, we had a small portion of dried cod and one apple each, and dinner was over: it was in Lent.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - Besides, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Americans, Danes, and Norwegians catch these cod by the thousands.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - There were cod, breams, silver-fish, and other kinds whose names they did not know, or which I have forgotten.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana - "Why, what a cod's head and shoulders I am," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to require reminding of it!
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens - ‘Cod, I think I see ‘un now, a powderin’ awa’ at the thin bread an’ butther!’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - —Who tried the case? says Joe. —Recorder, says Ned. —Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - Do me the favour, I pray thee, quoth Panurge, my pretty, soft, downy cod; now tell it, billy, tell it, I beseech thee.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - This equation, compared with another of seventy pounds of bacon for an amphora, (Cod. Theod.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - A praefectis autem praetorio provocare, non sinimus. Cod.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - innocence; and even his testimony may outweigh the charges of their enemies, (Cod. Theod.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - The entire work, of which some curious extracts may be found in Photius, (cod.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - I even drank the cod-liver oil he gave me, though my gorge rose against it.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - 57 Almost all of these cases were receiving liberal daily amounts of cod liver oil, which should exclude the possibility of complicating rickets.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess - All these infants were receiving cod liver oil daily, as prophylactic treatment against rickets.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess
