# fish

Pronunciation: say "FISH" /fɪʃ/

## Noun

1. A vertebrate animal that lives in water, swims with fins and breathes through gills, such as a cod, salmon or shark; most kinds are cold-blooded.
   - Simple: An animal that lives in water, swims using fins, and breathes through gills.
   - _A fish leaped clear of the water to catch an insect._
   - _Coral reefs shelter thousands of brightly colored fish._
3. The flesh of fish prepared and eaten as food.
   - Simple: The meat of a fish, eaten as food.
   - _The recipe calls for a firm white fish like cod._
   - _Many coastal diets rely on fish as their main source of protein._
4. A stretch of time spent out fishing.
   - Simple: A length of time spent catching fish.
   - _They enjoyed a peaceful fish on the riverbank all afternoon._
   - _An early morning fish is the best way to start the weekend._
7. A person of a particular kind or character, usually with a describing adjective before the noun, as in a cold fish or an odd fish. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A person of a certain kind, usually with a describing word just before it.
   - _Her new manager is a cold fish who barely looks up from his screen._
   - _He's a slippery fish, so get every promise in writing._
8. A card game in which players try to collect cards in pairs or sets of four by asking opponents for cards of a particular rank.
   - Simple: A card game where players ask each other for cards to make pairs or sets.
   - _We taught the children fish on the long car ride._
   - _A single deck is all you need for a game of fish._
9. A single act of searching for or trying to get hold of something.
   - Simple: A single try at finding or getting something by searching.
   - _After a long fish through the archives, he found the missing letter._
   - _She had another fish around in the drawer and found the spare key._
12. A person who is an easy target for cheats and swindlers, especially a weak player in poker who is easily beaten. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A person who is easy to trick or beat, especially at poker.
   - _The poker pro looked for a table with a few obvious fish._
   - _To the card sharps, the wide-eyed newcomer was an obvious fish._
13. An aquatic or semiaquatic animal permitted as food during the Friday and Lenten fasts, when other meat is given up.
   - Simple: A water animal that Catholics are allowed to eat on Fridays during Lent.
   - _In parts of Michigan, Catholics still eat muskrat on Lenten Fridays, since it has long been counted as fish._
   - _The monks debated whether turtle counted as fish and so could be eaten on fast days._
14. Cod, also called codfish. *(dialectal, Newfoundland)*
   - Simple: Cod, an ocean fish that people catch and eat.
   - _The merchant paid for fish by the quintal, but he offered almost nothing for the herring and caplin the boys brought in._
   - _He jigged a few fish off the wharf, fat cod and the first of the season, and fried them up for supper._
16. In naval slang, a torpedo: a self-propelled underwater weapon that explodes on or near its target. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A torpedo, an underwater weapon that moves by itself and explodes when it hits or gets near a ship.
   - _The captain ordered the crew to launch a fish at the approaching destroyer._
   - _Both fish ran straight and true, striking the carrier amidships._
17. A newly arrived prisoner, usually one seen as vulnerable to the others. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A new prisoner, often a weak one who is easy to hurt.
   - _Veteran inmates sized up the fish before he reached his bunk._
   - _The older inmates watched the scared young fish shuffle into the cell block and started betting on how long he would last._
18. Slang for women, or for a woman seen as very feminine, used sometimes as an insult and sometimes as praise. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A slang word for women, or for a very feminine woman. It can be rude, or it can be praise.
   - _A few men at the club talked loudly about the fish on the dance floor, as if the women couldn't hear them._
   - _When my aunt walked into the drag brunch in pearls and a silk dress, the host announced that she was the realest fish in the room._
19. A drag queen or transgender woman who passes as, or closely resembles, a cisgender woman. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A drag queen or trans woman who looks just like a woman who was born female.
   - _When the new drag queen stepped onto the runway, someone in the crowd shouted, "She's serving fish!"_
   - _Out of drag he was a bearded carpenter, but onstage he was such a fish that first-timers never guessed._
20. A derogatory and offensive slang term for a gay man. *(Jamaica)*
   - Simple: A rude, insulting word for a gay man.
   - _In Jamaica, some boys called him a fish because they thought he was gay._
   - _She told them to stop calling her brother a fish just because he is gay._
22. A makeshift overlapping brace, originally roughly fish-shaped, fastened lengthwise to temporarily repair or extend a ship's spar or mast.
   - Simple: A piece of wood or metal tied lengthwise along a ship's mast or spar to mend or strengthen it for a while.
   - _After the storm, the bosun fastened a fish along the damaged mast._
   - _When the topmast cracked in the gale, the carpenter lashed an oak fish along the break so the ship could limp into port._
24. A purchase (a tackle of ropes and blocks) used to hoist and secure a ship's anchor.
   - Simple: On a ship, a set of ropes and pulleys used to lift the anchor and hold it in place.
   - _The bosun rigged the fish to bring the anchor snug against the bow._
   - _Once the anchor was catted, the crew hooked on the fish and hauled its flukes up to the rail._
26. The thirty-fourth card of the Lenormand cartomantic deck.
   - Simple: In fortune-telling card reading, the thirty-fourth card of the Lenormand deck.
   - _The fish landed beside the rider, which the reader took as news about money._
   - _In a Lenormand spread, the fish near the anchor suggests steady finances._

## Verb

2. To catch or try to catch fish or other aquatic animals in a body of water, or to gather coral or pearls from the seabed.
   - Simple: To catch or try to catch fish or other water animals, or to gather coral or pearls from the sea floor.
   - _Villagers have fished along this coast for generations._
   - _Divers fish the lagoon for pearls._
5. To search for something by feeling about, as in a pocket or bag, or by dragging a river, lake or canal, in order to find it and pull it out.
   - Simple: To search for something by feeling around for it, for example in a bag or under water.
   - _She fished in her coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled note._
   - _He knelt by the couch to fish for the coin that had rolled under it._
6. To try to get people to reveal something, or to obtain something by clever, indirect means.
   - Simple: To try to get someone to say or give you something in an indirect way.
   - _Reporters love to fish for off-the-record remarks._
   - _He's been fishing for an invitation to the wedding all week._
10. To use something as bait while fishing.
   - Simple: To use something as bait to catch fish.
   - _Local guides fish minnows when the bass stop biting._
   - _She fished a bright spinner along the weed bed._
15. To draw or guide a wire or cable through an enclosed space using a fish tape.
   - Simple: To pull a wire or cable through a wall or pipe using a special flexible tool.
   - _She fished the coaxial cable through the conduit to the upstairs office._
   - _The walls were already finished, so the electrician had to fish the new cable down to the outlet box._
21. In cricket, of a batsman, to play at a ball passing outside off stump without making contact.
   - Simple: In cricket, to reach out at a ball passing wide and fail to hit it.
   - _Nervous batsmen tend to fish outside off stump early in their innings._
   - _He fished at the away-swinger and was nearly caught behind._
23. To repair a spar or mast by fastening a beam or other long object lengthwise over the damaged section.
   - Simple: In sailing, to mend a broken mast or spar by tying a strong beam over the damaged part.
   - _The carpenter fished the sprung mast with a stout timber lashed firmly in place._
   - _Before the next leg, the crew had to fish the damaged spar._

## Noun

11. Any animal that lives only in water, such as a whale or shellfish; an older, broader sense that survives in words like starfish and jellyfish. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: An old use for any animal that lives in water, as still seen in words like starfish.
   - _Early naturalists classed the whale and the porpoise alike as fish of the ocean._
   - _By that older reckoning, even the oyster ranked as a fish._
25. In cellular automata, a spaceship: a finite pattern that repeats itself at a displaced position, appearing to glide across the grid. *(rare)*
   - Simple: In computer cellular automata, a pattern of cells that moves steadily across the grid.
   - _After a few generations, a fish emerged and glided steadily toward the grid's edge._
   - _His search program turned up a new fish that crawled diagonally across the grid._

## Other meanings

- (noun) Any of the primitive fishes that have no jaws, such as lampreys and hagfish, grouped together by older classifications.
- (noun) Any of an extinct group of early fishes whose heads and upper bodies were covered in armored bony plates.
- (noun) Any of an extinct group of early fishes known as acanthodians, which had sharp spines in front of their fins.
- (verb) To raise the hooked arms of a ship's anchor up to the side of the vessel after weighing it.
- (noun) A small token or chip used in games to count points or stand for stakes, sometimes shaped like a fish.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3, 7–8, 11–14, 16–20, 22, 24–26** — From Middle English fisch, from Old English fisċ, going back through Proto-West Germanic *fisk and Proto-Germanic *fiskaz to Proto-Indo-European *peysk- ("fish"). It is related to Dutch vis, German Fisch, Swedish fisk, and, more distantly, Latin piscis.
**Meanings 4, 9** — A deverbal noun formed from the verb "to fish" (etymology 3).
**Meanings 2, 5–6, 10, 15, 21, 23** — From Old English fiscian, from Proto-West Germanic *fiskōn and Proto-Germanic *fiskōną. It is related to Dutch vissen, German fischen, and Swedish fiska ("to fish").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/fish (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).