1483, William Caxton, Magnus Cato, quoted in James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, vol. 2, publ. by John Russell Smith (1847), page 536.
[…] nyghe his hows dwellyd a maquerel or bawde […]

Hundreds of ‘night birds’ and their ‘mackerels’ and other vice-pushers were sent packing.

2006, Paul Crowley, Message-ID: in humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare https://web.archive.org/web/20201001221812/https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/VarPp2-HSO0/QuMJdNOwfisJ
A procurer or a pimp is a broker (or broker-between), a mackerel, or a pandar; the last is not necessarily-and, indeed, not usually-a professional.

You can't 'work' in a legal brothel without mackerel.

Perhaps, but my sources think the mackerel knew of this girl but she didn't know of him.

English

mackerel sky and mare's-tails make lofty ships carry low sails

mackerel sky and mare's-tails make tall ships carry low sails

Mackerel

Meaning

Noun

Origin

Related