Old Fourlegs, noun phrase

Forms:
Also Old Four Legs, and with small initial(s).
Origin:
From the belief formerly held that the fish actually walked on its four leg-like pectoral fins.
colloquial
A nickname for the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae of the Latimeriidae, a prehistoric fish thought to be extinct, but rediscovered off the coast of East London (Eastern Cape) in 1938.
1956 J.L.B. Smith (title)Old Fourlegs: the Story of the Coelacanth.
1970 J. McIntosh Stonefish 246Wispy fish and bushy fish; and deformed ones like Old Four Legs, the coelacanth.
1988 E. Prov. Herald 27 Feb. 7Fifty years after Old Fourlegs was caught near East London..the coelacanth is to be the subject of a new documentary.
1991 J. Taylor in E. Prov. Herald 16 May 6There, (sc. at the Chalumna River mouth, between Port Elizabeth and East London) the hunt for ‘Old Four Legs’, the prehistoric coelacanth, once thought to be extinct, will begin.
1992 Academic Standard Mar. 5Old fourlegs, the famous living fossil fish, Latimeria chalumnae.
A nickname for the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae of the Latimeriidae, a prehistoric fish thought to be extinct, but rediscovered off the coast of East London (Eastern Cape) in 1938.
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colloquial
old-boss, nounn.Old Year, noun phrasen. phr.
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