cramp-fish

Meno has discoursed a thousand times, at length, on virtue, before many companies, and very well, as it appeared to him; but at this moment he cannot even tell what it is, — this cramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him.

Representative Men 2006

The unfortunate Conseil had attacked a cramp-fish of the most dangerous kind, the cumana.

Vingt mille lieues sous les mers. English Jules Verne 1866

-- Meno has discoursed a thousand times, at length, on virtue, before many companies, and very well, as it appeared to him; but, at this moment, he cannot even tell what it is, -- this cramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him.

Representative Man (1850) 1850

- Meno has discoursed a thousand times, at length, on virtue, before many companies, and very well, as it appeared to him; but, at this moment, he cannot even tell what it is, -- this cramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him.

Representative Men Ralph Waldo Emerson 1842

So that we can but believe that, if he had not been paralyzed as he was by the prejudices of his epoch, if he had come in contact less frequently with the classic cramp-fish, he would not have failed to introduce Locuste in his drama between

Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations Edmund Spenser 1730