fish

English Online Dictionary. What means fish‎? What does fish mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: fĭsh, IPA^(key): /fɪʃ/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /fɘʃ/
• Homophones: phish, ghoti
• Rhymes: -ɪʃ

Etymology 1

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).

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.

2. (archaic or loosely) Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.
3. (Newfoundland) Cod; codfish.
4. (uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.

5. (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.
6. (uncountable, derogatory, slang) A woman.
7. (countable, slang) An easy victim for swindling.
8. (countable, poker slang) A bad poker player. Compare shark (a good poker player).
9. (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.
10. (nautical) A purchase used to fish the anchor.
11. (countable, nautical, military, slang) A torpedo (self-propelled explosive device).
12. (zoology) A paraphyletic grouping of the following extant taxonomic groups:
    1. Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebrae)
    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.
13. (cartomancy) The thirty-fourth Lenormand card.
14. (prison slang) A new (usually vulnerable) prisoner.
15. (Jamaica, offensive, derogatory) A male homosexual; a gay man.

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

• (potential swindling victim): mark
• (card game): Go Fish
• (bad poker player): donkey, donk

Hyponyms

• (aquatic cold-blooded vertabrae with gills): Cephalaspidomorphi, Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes
• (food): seafood

Derived terms

Related terms

• (adj): fishly, piscine, fishy (inf.)
• (astronomical): The Fish, Pisces
• (collective): piscifauna
• (combinatorial form): pisci- (Latinate, general)
• (fish-catcher): See fisher
• (fish-eater): piscivore
• (fish-infesting): piscolous
• (fish-killing): piscicidal
• (fish-like): fishly, piscose (culinary), fishy, fishlike (inf.)
• (fish science): fishlore, piscatology (irreg.)
• (fish-shaped): pisciform
• (fish vendor): fishmonger, piscitarian
• (full of fish): fishful, pisculent
• (skin disorder): fish-skin disease
• (state of being a fish): fishdom, fishhood (formal), piscinity (formal), fishiness (inf.)
• (taxonomical): Actinopterygii, bony fish, cartilaginous fish, finned fish, finfish, Osteichthyes, Sarcopterygii

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: fisi
• → Chinook Jargon: pish
• → Finnish: fisu
• → Zulu: ufishi

Translations

Etymology 2

Deverbal from to fish (etymology 3).

Noun

fish (plural fishes)

1. A period of time spent fishing.

2. An instance of seeking something.

Etymology 3

From Old English fiscian, from Proto-West Germanic *fiskōn, 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 in a body of water.
   • 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.

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

3. (fishing, transitive) To use as bait when fishing.
4. (intransitive) To (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects.

   Synonym: rummage

5. (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.
6. (intransitive, cricket) Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.
7. (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).
8. (nautical, transitive) To hoist the flukes of.

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

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, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Further reading

• fish (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• fish on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• fish (food) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• fishing on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Middle English

Noun

fish (plural fishes or fish)

1. Alternative form of fisch