fish

See also: Fish, FISH, and The Fish

English

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈfɪʃ/
  • (General New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈfɘʃ/
  • Audio (RP)(file)
  • Audio (GA)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪʃ
  • Homophone: ghoti

Etymology 1

From Middle English fisch, from Old English fisċ (“fish”), from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz (“fish”) (compare West Frisian fisk, Dutch vis, Danish fisk, Norwegian fisk, German Fisch), from Proto-Indo-European *peysḱ- (“fish”) (compare Irish iasc, Latin piscis).

Noun

fish (countable and uncountable, plural fish or fishes)

  1. (countable) A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.
    Salmon is a fish.
    The Sun Mother created all the fishes of the world.
    The Sun Mother created all the fish of the world.
    We have many fish in our aquarium.
  2. (archaic or loosely) Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.
    • 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature, volume IV:
      The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster… as men have been willing to give them all the name of fishes, it is wisest for us to conform.
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:
      Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.
  3. (uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.
    • 2012 March, “Flexing your brain”, in Consumer Reports on Health, volume 24, number 3, page 9:
      Include low-mercury fish in your diet (such as salmon) and eat at least five servings a day of fruit and vegetables, especially dark leafy greens, broccoli, and cauliflower. Avoid saturated and trans fats, which may hasten brain aging.
    The seafood pasta had lots of fish but not enough pasta.
  4. (uncountable) A card game in which the object is to obtain cards in pairs or sets of four (depending on the variation), by asking the other players for cards of a particular rank.
  5. (uncountable, derogatory, slang) A woman.
  6. (countable, slang) An easy victim for swindling.
  7. (countable, poker slang) A bad poker player. Compare shark (a good poker player).
  8. (countable, nautical) A makeshift overlapping longitudinal brace, originally shaped roughly like a fish, used to temporarily repair or extend a spar or mast of a ship.
  9. (nautical) A purchase used to fish the anchor.
  10. (countable, nautical) A torpedo.
    • 1977, Richard O'Kane, Clear the Bridge: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang, Ballantine Books (2003), page 344:
      The second and third fish went to the middle of her long superstructure and under her forward deck.
  11. (zoology) A paraphyletic grouping of the following extant taxonomic groups:
    1. Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebra)
    2. Class Petromyzontida, the lampreys (no jaw)
    3. Within infraphylum Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates (also including Tetrapoda)
      1. Class Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays
      2. Superclass Osteichthyes, bony fish.
  12. (cartomancy) The thirty-fourth Lenormand card.
Usage notes

The collective plural of fish is normally fish in the UK, except in archaic texts where fishes may be encountered; in the US, fishes is encountered as well, but much less commonly. When referring to two or more kinds of fish, the plural is fishes.

Synonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
See also
  • Appendix:Fish

Etymology 2

Deverbal from to fish (etymology 3).

Noun

fish (plural fishes)

  1. A period of time spent fishing.
    The fish at the lake didn't prove successful.
  2. An instance of seeking something.
    Merely two fishes for information told the whole story.

Etymology 3

From Old English fiscian, from Proto-Germanic *fiskōną.

Verb

fish (third-person singular simple present fishes, present participle fishing, simple past and past participle fished)

  1. (intransitive) To hunt fish or other aquatic animals.
    • 19th c., anonymous, "The Bonny Ship the 'Diamond'"
      It's cheer up, my lads, let your hearts never fail,
      For the bonny ship the Diamond goes a-fishing for the whale.
    She went to the river to fish for trout.
  2. (transitive) To search (a body of water) for something other than fish.
    They fished the surrounding lakes for the dead body.
  3. (intransitive) To (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects.
    Why are you fishing through my things?
    He was fishing for the keys in his pocket.
  4. (intransitive, followed by "for" or "around for") To talk to people in an attempt to get them to say something.
    The detective visited the local pubs fishing around for more information.
    The actors loitered at the door, fishing for compliments.
  5. (intransitive, cricket) Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.
  6. (nautical) To repair a spar or mast by fastening a beam or other long object (often called a fish) over the damaged part (see Noun above).
    • 1970, James Henderson, The Frigates, an account of the lesser warships of the wars from 1793 to 1815, Wordsworth (1998), page 143:
      […] the crew were set to replacing and splicing the rigging and fishing the spars.
Synonyms
  • (try to catch a fish): angle, drop in a line
  • (try to find something): rifle, rummage
  • (attempt to gain (compliments, etc)): angle
Derived terms
Translations
transitive: to try to find something in a body of water

Etymology 4

Borrowed from French fiche (“peg, mark”).

Noun

fish (plural fishes)

  1. (obsolete) A counter, used in various games.

References
  • fish in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Further reading

Middle English

Noun

fish (plural fishes or fish)

  1. Alternative form of fisch
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