Meaning of ‘Dressed Out’ – Word Meaning

meaning

This is a part from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

    There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.
    “Eighty-five is a lucky number,” the old man said. “How would you like to see me bring one in that dressed out over a thousand pounds?”
    “I’ll get the cast net and go for sardines. Will you sit in the sun in the doorway?”

What does that dressed out exactly mean there?

Best Answer

You should understand what the term dressed weight means. According to the linked Wikipedia article,

Dressed weight (also called carcass weight) refers to the weight of an animal after being partially butchered, removing all the internal organs and oftentimes the head as well as inedible (or less desirable) portions of the tail and legs. It includes the bones, cartilage and other body structure still attached after this initial butchering. It is usually a fraction of the total weight of the animal...

Therefore, the phrase to "dress out" could be interpreted as to "weigh after removing unnecessary parts of the fish" as in

How would you like to see me bring one in / that (relative pronoun) weighed over a thousand pounds after removing unnecessary parts of (dressing) the fish?

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