Jack of Dover

A stockfish, “hake salted and dried.” The Latin for a hake is merlucius, and lucius is a jack or pike. Mer, of course, means the sea, and Dover, the chief Cinque Port, is used as a synonym. Also refuse wine collected into a bottle and sold for fresh wine. “To do-over again.” (See Dover.)

“Many a Jack of Dover hastow sold

That hath been twyës hot and twyës cold.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.