fish

Salmon is a fish.

The fishmonger sells fishes from all over the world.

Ichthyologists study the fish of the world.

We have many fish in our aquarium.

(countable) A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.

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.

1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature, volume IV:

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.

(archaic or loosely) Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.

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.

2012 March, “Flexing your brain”, in Consumer Reports on Health, volume 24, number 3, page 9:

The seafood pasta had lots of fish but not enough pasta.

Though Lena is a vegetarian, she doesn't have any problem with eating fish.

(uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.

(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.

(uncountable, slang, sometimes derogatory, sometimes positive) A (feminine) woman. (See also fishy.)

(countable, slang) An easy victim for swindling.

(countable, poker slang) A bad poker player. Compare shark (a good poker player).

(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.

(nautical) A purchase used to fish the anchor.

The second and third fish went to the middle of her long superstructure and under her forward deck.

1977, Richard O'Kane, Clear the Bridge: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang, Ballantine Books, published 2003, page 344:

As we came off patrol we had some torpedoes fired at us by an enemy submarine but we dived out of the way. About April 10 we fired our fish in two salvoes at a convoy.

1999, John Winton, The Submariners: Life in British Submarines 1901-1999, page 114:

(countable, nautical, military, slang) A torpedo (self-propelled explosive device).

(zoology) A paraphyletic grouping of the following extant taxonomic groups:

Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebrae)

Class Petromyzontida, the lampreys (no jaw)

Within infraphylum Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates (also including Tetrapoda))

Class Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays

(cartomancy) The thirty-fourth Lenormand card.

(prison slang) A new (usually vulnerable) prisoner.

When a young male enters the prison system he is looked over and is labeled a FISH.

1986 April 19, Michael Rathbone, “Tell Someone”, in Gay Community News, page 4:

Him father is a fish so mi know say it's sprat dat

2007, “Touch The Road” (track 18), in Gangsta for Life: The Symphony of David Brooks, performed by Mavado (singer):

His father is a homosexual, so I know that he is too.

Bere gunman deh ya we nuh fren fish (hey bwoy)

2021 August 4, “Street Cred”performed by Skeng:

Lots of gunmen are here, we don't befriend gay men (hey boy)

(Jamaica, offensive, derogatory) A male homosexual; a gay man.

en-noun

fish (countable and uncountable, plural fish or fishes)

aquatic cold-blooded vertabrae with gills

a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle

a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle

give a man a fish and you feed him for a day

teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring

neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring

the cat would eat fish but would not wet her feet

what does that have to do with the price of fish

Sranan Tongo: fisi

→ Chinook Jargon: pish

→ Finnish: fisu

→ Zulu: ufishi

kala

archaic: any vertebrate that lives in water and cannot live outside it

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


fish

The fish at the lake didn't prove successful.

Merely two fishes for information told the whole story.


fish

We went fishing for crabs by the pier.

She went to the river to fish for trout.

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.

(intransitive) To hunt fish or other aquatic animals in a body of water.

They fished the surrounding lakes for the dead body.

(transitive) To search (a body of water) for something other than fish.

`What you need are frogs,' said the veteran. `Fish them at night. There's nothing like them on big cork floats.'

1983, The Fisherman Who Laughed, page 40:

(fishing, transitive) To use as bait when fishing.

Why are you fishing through my things?

He was fishing for the keys in his pocket.

(intransitive) To (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects.

The detective visited the local pubs fishing around for more information.

The actors loitered at the door, fishing for compliments.

Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment,
But ’tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine,
And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes.

1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:

(intransitive, followed by "for" or "around for") To talk to people in an attempt to get them to say something, or seek to obtain something by artifice.

(intransitive, cricket) Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.

[…] the crew were set to replacing and splicing the rigging and fishing the spars.

1970, James Henderson, The Frigates, an account of the lesser warships of the wars from 1793 to 1815, Wordsworth, published 1998, page 143:

(nautical, transitive) 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).

Found that the cause of the ship's having drifted on the night of the 19th, was from the bight of the chain span (used to fish the anchor,) having slipped between the shank and upper fluke, thereby preventing the lower fluke from opening […]

1860, Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, page 214:

(nautical, transitive) To hoist the flukes of.

en-verb

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

fishes (present singular third-person)
fishing (participle present)
fished (participle past)
fished (past)

snoeken

when fishing for this particular kind of fish

kalastaa

transitive: to try to find something in a body of water

penkoa

to attempt to find by searching among other objects

urkkia

to attempt to obtain information by talking to people

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


fish

(obsolete) A counter, used in various games.

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