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• fish
  fish

  noun

  any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
• Fish
  Fish

  noun

  Hamilton, 1808–93, U.S. statesman: secretary of state 1869–77.
• FISH
  FISH

  acronym

  fluorescence in situ hybridization, a technique for detecting and locating gene mutations and chromosome abnormalities

fish

¹ American  

[fish] / fɪʃ /

noun

• fish,
  plural
• fishes
  plural

1. any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.

2. (loosely) any of various aquatic animals.

3. the flesh of fishes used as food.

4. Astronomy, Astrology. Fishes, the constellation or sign of Pisces.

5. Informal. a person.

   an odd fish; a poor fish.

6. a long strip of wood, iron, etc., used to strengthen a mast, joint, etc.

7. Cards Slang. an incompetent player whose incompetence can be exploited.

8. Slang. a dollar.

   He sold the car for 500 fish.

9. Slang.

   1. a new prison inmate.

   2. a high school or college freshman; frosh.

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verb (used with object)

• fishes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• fished,
  past participle,  past
• fishing
  present participle

1. to catch or attempt to catch (any species of fish or the like).

2. to try to catch fish in (a stream, lake, etc.).

   Let's fish the creek.

3. to draw, as by fishing (often followed by up orout ).

   He fished a coin out of his pocket for the boy.

4. to search through, as by fishing.

5. Nautical.

   1. to secure (an anchor) by raising the flukes.

   2. to reinforce (a mast or other spar) by fastening a spar, batten, metal bar, or the like, lengthwise over a weak place.

verb (used without object)

• fishes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• fished,
  past participle,  past
• fishing
  present participle

1. to catch or attempt to catch fish, as by angling or drawing a net.

2. to search carefully.

   He fished through all his pockets but his wallet was gone.

3. to seek to obtain something indirectly or by artifice.

   to fish for compliments; to fish for information.

4. to search for or attempt to catch onto something under water, in mud, etc., by the use of a dredge, rake, hook, or the like.

5. to attempt to recover detached tools or other loose objects from an oil or gas well.

verb phrase

1. fish out to deplete (a lake, stream, etc.) of fish by fishing.

idioms

1. fish in troubled waters, to take advantage of troubled or uncertain conditions for personal profit.

2. fish or cut bait, to choose a definite course of action, especially to decide whether to participate in or retreat from an activity.

3. other fish to fry, other matters requiring attention.

   When it was time to act, they had other fish to fry.

4. drink like a fish, to drink alcoholic beverages to excess.

   Nobody invites him out because he drinks like a fish.

5. fish out of water, a person out of their proper or accustomed environment.

   He felt like a fish out of water in an academic atmosphere.

6. neither fish nor fowl, having no specific character or conviction; neither one nor the other.

Fish ² American  

[fish] / fɪʃ /

noun

1. Hamilton, 1808–93, U.S. statesman: secretary of state 1869–77.

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fish ¹ British  

/ fɪʃ /

noun

1. 1. any of a large group of cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates having jaws, gills, and usually fins and a skin covered in scales: includes the sharks and rays (class Chondrichthyes : cartilaginous fishes ) and the teleosts, lungfish, etc (class Osteichthyes : bony fishes )

   2. ( in combination )

      fishpond

2. any of various similar but jawless vertebrates, such as the hagfish and lamprey

3. (not in technical use) any of various aquatic invertebrates, such as the cuttlefish, jellyfish, and crayfish

4. the flesh of fish used as food

5. informal a person of little emotion or intelligence

   a poor fish

6. short for fishplate

7. Also called: tin fish.  an informal word for torpedo

8. an awkward situation; mess

9. to drink (esp alcohol) to excess

10. to have other activities to do, esp more important ones

11. out of one's usual place

12. to discriminate unfairly between people

13. neither this nor that

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verb

1. (intr) to attempt to catch fish, as with a line and hook or with nets, traps, etc

2. (tr) to fish in (a particular area of water)

3. to search (a body of water) for something or to search for something, esp in a body of water

4. to seek something indirectly

   to fish for compliments

FISH ² British  

/ fɪʃ /

acronym

1. fluorescence in situ hybridization, a technique for detecting and locating gene mutations and chromosome abnormalities

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fish Scientific  

/ fĭsh /

• fish
  plural

1. Any of numerous cold-blooded vertebrate animals that live in water. Fish have gills for obtaining oxygen, a lateral line for sensing pressure changes in the water, and a vertical tail. Most fish are covered with scales and have limbs in the form of fins. Fish were once classified together as a single group, but are now known to compose numerous evolutionarily distinct classes, including the bony fish, cartilaginous fish, jawless fish, lobe-finned fish, and placoderms.

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fish More Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing fish

• big fish in a small pond
• cold fish
• drink like a fish
• goldfish bowl
• kettle of fish
• like shooting fish in a barrel
• neither fish nor fowl
• not the only fish in the sea
• other fish to fry
• smell fishy

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Usage

What else does fish mean? Fish, appearing especially in the phrase fresh fish, is prison slang for new, first-time inmates, usually considered naive and vulnerable. Fish, often appearing in the form of fishy or the phrase serving fish, is also slang in drag culture for a very feminine drag queen. Content warning: this article contains references to sexual and sexist content.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• outfish
  verb (used with object)
• fishable
  adjective
• fishless
  adjective
• fishlike
  adjective
• unfished
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• fish
  plural
• fishes
  plural

Participles

• fishing
  present
• fished
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• fish
  simple
• fishes
  simple
• have fished
  perfect
• has fished
  perfect
• am fishing
  progressive
• are fishing
  progressive
• is fishing
  progressive
• have been fishing
  perfect progressive
• has been fishing
  perfect progressive

Past

• fished
  simple
• had fished
  perfect
• was fishing
  progressive
• were fishing
  progressive
• had been fishing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will fish
  simple
• will have fished
  perfect
• will be fishing
  progressive
• will have been fishing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of fish

First recorded before 900; (noun) Middle English fis(c)h, fyssh, Old English fisc; cognate with Dutch vis, German Fisch, Old Norse fiskr, Gothic fisks; akin to Latin piscis, Irish iasc; (verb) Middle English fishen, Old English fiscian, cognate with Dutch visschen, German fischen, Old Norse fiska, Gothic fiskôn

Explanation

A fish is a cold-blooded aquatic vertebrate with scales and gills, like a shark, a trout, or a pike. To fish is to try to catch a fish. Fish comes from an old German version of the Latin word for "fish," piscus, from which you might recognize the astrological sign Pisces. The word can describe either the creature or the meat from the creature. When fish is a verb, it can be used literally for the act of trying to catch a fish, or metaphorically for trying to find something, like fishing for someone's name in your memory.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fish Fish FISH fishes fished fishing

Last time a marine heatwave hit South Australia and Tasmania, there were starving penguins, fish kills, suffocating algae outbreaks, and jellyfish invasions.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

Recalling the model airplane sets he assembled as a child, he arranged a fish, a chicken and a duck as a collection of dissected parts on a tabletop, labeling it with instructions for reconstruction.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026

Iranian exports to Kuwait consisted mostly of food and agricultural products, fish, carpets and construction materials.

From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026

The city, whose indigenous name—“the place where the fish stops”—comes from its river rapids, gave Brazil’s right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro, 79% of the vote in 2018.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

My heart flops around, like a fish in the bottom of a boat.

From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam

The agents turned to Joey “Socks” Lanza, the mafioso running Manhattan’s Fulton Fish Market, for information.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Fish and marine industries account for almost 40% of Iceland's exports and many No voters are worried that under the EU's common fisheries policy they could cede some control of their lucrative fishing grounds.

From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026

But when Madkaur later came across Hagisufi while swiping through the dating site Plenty of Fish, he reconsidered.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

They made off with "Fish" by Auguste Renoir, "Still Life with Cherries" by Paul Cezanne, and "Odalisque on the Terrace" by Henri Matisse.

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

But then I decide to check the Fish and Wildlife Department’s website.

From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz

One can determine the pedigree of a disease, produce recombinants and detect the presence of extracellular genes using FISH.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022

N.M.-T. aided in probe design, optimization of RNA FISH, and performed flow cytometry.

From Nature ● Sep. 24, 2017

Finally, a yet more sensitive test, called FISH, was done.

From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2012

And pop star Shakira has been attacked by a raging sea lion which thought her mobile phone was a FISH.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 14, 2012

Christoph had framed a fourteen-by-twenty-inch print of Henrietta’s chromosomes that he’d “painted” using FISH.

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

“I ran into a tiki bar one time. That wasn’t too good,” said Derrick Hoy, 55, who fishes scallops in the Atlantic on a different vessel from Crusher, the 30-foot boat he competes with.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

It says the blue shark is one of Ireland's largest and most valuable marine sport fishes.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

John van Rooyen regularly surfs and spear fishes at the Tinley Manor beach, about 2 miles from where he lives.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026

We humans eat seven fishes on Christmas Eve, samosas on Eid al-Fitr and maple cookies behind the moon.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026

He was so close that Malcolm could smell his skin, which was redolent of mud, and fishes, and weeds.

From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman

Bigeye trevally are fished in many parts of the world, but here they are relatively safe.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

There’s a predictable resistance of In my day we fished with a wooden stick and a bottle cap and caught fish the size of Buicks, etc.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

"I've lived here for 25 years and the water has never been this low," said pensioner Mitica Nicolae from Corabia as he fished in an irrigation canal close to the river.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

Roughly a dozen people at the if-you-know-you-know event grooved and shuffled to EDM music while kayak enthusiasts paddled by and locals fished for carp.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

All in all, Wallace made twelve trips down the Eternal Creek before some folks from Fry fished him out.

From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles

In Manta, the country's main fishing port, a group of people awaited news Friday of their relatives who, they said, were traveling on the boats targeted in the past two days.

From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026

A warship, the USS Lexington, destroyed a fort established there in December 1831 amid a dispute over local fishing and sealing rights.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

Jimin, his hair grown long and dyed blond, was the night’s standout in a mesh top he paired with what looked an awful lot like somebody’s grandpa’s fishing vest.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

Orlando also ranked high in terms of recreational activities for retirees, coming in second for recreation overall with a high number of music venues, fishing facilities, art galleries and adult volunteer activities.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026

I wondered if he came from a fishing community.

From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo