Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DUN'NING, ppr. [or n. from dun, a color.]

The operation of curing codfish, in such a manner as to give it a particular color and quality. Fish for dunning are caught early in spring and often in February. At the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, the cod are taken in deep water, split and slack-salted; then laid in a pile for two or three months, in a dark store, covered, for the greatest part of the time, with salt hay or eel-grass, and pressed with some weight. In April or May, they are opened and piled again as close as possible in the same dark store, till July or August, when they are fit for use. – J. Haven.