"Cod" by Mark Kurlansky 2

Question 1

game fish

Answer 1

noun ( pl. same )
a fish caught by anglers for sport, esp. (in fresh water) salmon and trout and (in the sea) billfish, shark, bass, and many members of the mackerel family.

Question 2

forage fish

Answer 2

noun

small pelagic fish that are the prey of larger game fish.

Question 3

pelagic

Answer 3

The open ocean, or pelagic zone, consists of everything in the ocean outside of coastal areas.

Question 4

krill

Answer 4

a small shrimplike planktonic crustacean of the open seas. It is eaten by a number of larger animals, notably the baleen whales.

Question 5

baleen whales

Answer 5

noun a whale that has plates of whalebone in the mouth for straining plankton from the water. Baleen whales include the rorquals, humpback, right whales, and gray whale.

Question 6

baleen

Answer 6

Baleen is a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of baleen whales. The baleen system works when a whale opens its mouth underwater and the whale takes in water. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food source for the whale. Baleen is similar to bristles and is made of keratin, the same substance found in human fingernails and hair.

Question 7

keratin

Answer 7

noun a fibrous protein forming the main structural constituent of hair, feathers, hoofs, claws, horns, etc.

Question 8

Faroes

Answer 8

a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the Shetland Islands that belong to Denmark but are semi-autonomous; pop. 48,900 (est. 2009); capital, Tórshavn.

Question 9

Bilbao

Answer 9

n. a seaport and industrial city in northern Spain

“The Spanish Basque city of Bilbao, with its iron works providing the anchors and other metal fittings for Europe’s ships, was one of the ports that grew with the boom in shipbuilding created by the cod trade.”

Question 10

ballast

Answer 10

heavy material, such as gravel, sand, iron, or lead, placed low in a vessel to improve its stability.

“But the French Terreneuve merchants filled their holds with legal, high-quality French salt, which made good ballast, and sailed to Newfoundland. They returned with salt cod in the holds where the salt had been.”

Question 11

bilge

Answer 11

N. the bottom part of the inside of a ship or boat

Question 12

magazine

Answer 12

a chamber for holding a supply of cartridges to be fed automatically to the breech of a gun.

“…a Spaniard named Juan martinez had been sent there as a death sentence. He had been found responsible for an accident in which a magazine of gunpowder exploded, and his punishment for negligence was to be dropped off at the unknown northeastern coast of South America in a canoe without supplies.” (63)

Question 13

breech

Answer 13

the part of a firearm at the rear of the barrel

Question 14

cartridge

Answer 14

Ammunition consisting of a cylindrical casing containing an explosive charge and a bullet; fired from a rifle or handgun

Question 15

charge

Answer 15

a quantity of explosive to be detonated, typically in order to fire a gun or similar weapon.