capelin

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

capelin (plural capelins or capelin)

1. Mallotus villosus, a type of smelt found in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
   • 1983, Bodil Kaalund, Kenneth Tindall (translator), The Art of Greenland: Sculpture, Crafts, Painting, page 161,

     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).

   • 1996, (US) National Academy of Sciences, The Bering Sea Ecosystem‎, page 107:

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

   • 2009, Aslaug Asgeirsdottir, Who Gets What?‎, page 20:

     Capelin is a relatively small, pelagic species found in the North-East Atlantic, the Barents Sea, Southwest of Greenland, off the coast of Labrador, and around Newfoundland.

• in place, panicle, pelican, pinacle