vobla

• wobla

dried vobla

Loanword from Russian во́бла (vóbla)

vobla (plural voblas)

1. The Caspian roach (Rutilus caspicus), formerly considered a subspecies of the common roach.
   • 1900 September, Einar Lönnberg, “Short notes on Caspian fishes”, in Revue Internationale de Pêche et de Pisciculture, Volume II, Number 2, Russian Imperial Society of Fishculture and Fisheries, page 4:

     The „vobla“ (Leuciscus rutilus Lin.) is one of the most important food fishes of this region. […] This vobla is very fat and is more stoutly built, than the northern roach, but cannot otherwise be distinguished from the same.

   • 1918, I. Pelferoff, “Fisheries”, Chapter IX of Arthur Raffalovich (editor), Russia: Its Trade and Commerce, P. S. King & Son, page 221:

     In this connexion, the cost of “vobla,”¹ which to some extent replaces the herring, has soared upwards. […] Dried “vobla,” which is a popular article of food, and was formerly sold at one copeck per fish, now sells at from 5 to 10 copecks for the smaller fish, and 20 copecks for the larger. ¶ […] ¶ The only exceptions to the general rule are white sturgeon, salmon and to some extent “vobla.”

     ¹ An inferior species of herring.

   • 1989, Mary McAuley, “Bread without the Bourgeoisie”, in Diane Koenker et al., editors, Party, State, and Society in the Russian Civil War, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 167:

     For most it was bread and vobla, an awful salt-fish, nicknamed “Soviet ham,” whose bones would splinter and damage the intestines. […] But in the spring of 1921, […] the average employee was back to a half pound of bread, one pound of cereal, and two pounds of vobla.

• This word is frequently italicized or otherwise treated as foreign.

• Caspian roach
• wobla

vobla m (plural voblas)

1. (rare) vobla (Rutilus caspicus, a fish of the Caspian sea)