giller

plural gillers

1. obsoleteA person who gills fish.First known use 13–th c.

   This was done by the giller. We would no: try it if we could get out of it. It was too risky.

   1906, W. E. Meehan, “The Shad Work on the Delaware River in 1907 and Its Lessons”, in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society at its Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting, page 105

   2 more examples

   It is one of the improvements of the times ; it enables the poor man, with hardly anything, to go to work on his own resources, and with his boat and net to follow the fish as they travel from place to place in search of food or to spawn. In this pursuit the giller comes in contact with the seinehauler, and certainly encroaches upon his rights.

   1872 January 28, Hunter Davidson, Report on the Oyster Fisheries: Potomac River Shad and Herring Fisheries, and the Water-Fowl of Maryland, page 35

   It is then thrown to the giller, who removes the gills and entrails and cuts a gash along the side containing the backbone, in order that the salt may the more readily penetrate the flesh.

   1897, George Brown Goode, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, volume I, Washington: Government Printing Office, page 572

plural Gillers

1. A surname.