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fish
1[ fish ]
noun
- any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- (loosely) any of various aquatic animals.
- the flesh of fishes used as food.
- Fishes, Astronomy, Astrology. the constellation or sign of Pisces.
- Informal. a person:
an odd fish; a poor fish.
- a long strip of wood, iron, etc., used to strengthen a mast, joint, etc.
- Cards Slang. an incompetent player whose incompetence can be exploited.
- Slang. a dollar:
He sold the car for 500 fish.
- Slang.
- a new prison inmate.
- a high school or college freshman; frosh.
verb (used with object)
- to catch or attempt to catch (any species of fish or the like).
- to try to catch fish in (a stream, lake, etc.):
Let's fish the creek.
- to draw, as by fishing (often followed by up or out ):
He fished a coin out of his pocket for the boy.
- to search through, as by fishing.
- Nautical.
- to secure (an anchor) by raising the flukes.
- 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)
- to catch or attempt to catch fish, as by angling or drawing a net.
- to search carefully:
He fished through all his pockets but his wallet was gone.
- to seek to obtain something indirectly or by artifice:
to fish for compliments; to fish for information.
- 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.
- to attempt to recover detached tools or other loose objects from an oil or gas well.
verb phrase
- to deplete (a lake, stream, etc.) of fish by fishing.
Fish
2[ fish ]
noun
- Hamilton, 1808–93, U.S. statesman: secretary of state 1869–77.
fish
1/ fɪʃ /
noun
- 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 )
- ( in combination ) ichthyicichthyoidpiscine
fishpond
- any of various similar but jawless vertebrates, such as the hagfish and lamprey
- not in technical use any of various aquatic invertebrates, such as the cuttlefish, jellyfish, and crayfish
- the flesh of fish used as food
- informal.a person of little emotion or intelligence
a poor fish
- See fishplateshort for fishplate
- See torpedoAlso calledtin fish an informal word for torpedo
- a fine kettle of fisha fine kettle of fish an awkward situation; mess
- drink like a fishdrink like a fish to drink (esp alcohol) to excess
- have other fish to fryhave other fish to fry to have other activities to do, esp more important ones
- like a fish out of waterlike a fish out of water out of one's usual place
- make fish of one and flesh of anothermake fish of one and flesh of another to discriminate unfairly between people
- neither fish, flesh, nor fowlneither fish, flesh, nor fowl neither this nor that
verb
- intr to attempt to catch fish, as with a line and hook or with nets, traps, etc
- tr to fish in (a particular area of water)
- to search (a body of water) for something or to search for something, esp in a body of water
- intrfoll byfor to seek something indirectly
to fish for compliments
FISH
2/ fɪʃ /
acronym for
- fluorescence in situ hybridization, a technique for detecting and locating gene mutations and chromosome abnormalities
fish
/ fĭsh /
, Plural fish
- 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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Derived Forms
- ˈfishable, adjective
- ˈfishˌlike, adjective
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Other Words From
- fish·less adjective
- fish·like adjective
- out·fish verb (used with object)
- un·fished adjective
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Word History and Origins
Origin of fish1
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Word History and Origins
Origin of fish1
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Idioms and Phrases
- drink like a fish, to drink alcoholic beverages to excess:
Nobody invites him out because he drinks like a fish.
- fish in troubled waters, to take advantage of troubled or uncertain conditions for personal profit.
- fish or cut bait, to choose a definite course of action, especially to decide whether to participate in or retreat from an activity.
- 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.
- neither fish nor fowl, having no specific character or conviction; neither one nor the other.
- other fish to fry, other matters requiring attention:
When it was time to act, they had other fish to fry.
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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Example Sentences
On March 20, 2019, fish caught in Ohio’s Cuyahoga River were declared safe to eat by federal environmental regulators.
The new work provides important context for data being collected on fish stocks.
Sims and Berni wonder how these ideas might be explored in vertebrates like mice and zebra fish.
For example, fishes who start living and evolving in unlit caves often lose their eyes, because the costs of developing them outweigh their advantages.
This makes the online world an exceptionally volatile environment, where big fishes swallow the small ones.
When Chérif got out of prison, he worked at the fish counter of a supermarket.
“The government just wanted to catch the big fish [in the Juarez cartel] and they ignored everything in between,” Lozoya said.
Kocurek documented the scene with notes and diagrams, and called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer corroborated another account.
A Fish and Wildlife special agent collected the bodies of two birds at the site, a redhead duck and a mourning dove.
He must be The saltest fish that swims the sea.And, oh!He has a secret woe!
He looked up from his fish and replied, somewhat cuttingly, "By contesting a borough and getting elected."
Smoking, the angry and fuming king protests, had made our manners as rude as those of the fish-wives of Dieppe.
But what if I catch the fish by using a hired boat and a hired net, or by buying worms as bait from some one who has dug them?
The Taube has been bothering us again, but wound up its manœuvres very decently by killing some fish for our dinner.
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About This Word
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.
Where does fish come from?
Fish has been recorded as prison slang for new inmates since the 1870s. The term apparently likens new prisoners to fish fresh out of the water. One theory about the slang’s origin claims that inmates were issued uniforms with their inmate numbers stamped with an ink that smelled fishy when wet.
Fish for new inmates shouldn’t be confused with another prison slang term, fishing. This refers to using a string to pass contraband items between cells in a manner similar to casting a fishing line.
Security update. Spot check by prison security staff found this. Did you spot it? Blue in color cable placed over the wall. Drops down into inmate holding area and being used as a 'fishing line' to move contraband. Corrective action taken. #safeprisons pic.twitter.com/islbBC3qfE
— Seychelles Prison Service (@SeychellePrison) October 29, 2018
Fish is also slang in the drag community. Alluding to popular beliefs about female genitalia, fish, here, refers to a drag queen who closely resembles a woman. Referring to a drag queen as fishy, or saying they are serving fish, is considered complimentary within the drag community, but keep in mind that such a description for women and their bodies is generally extremely offensive.
How is fish used in real life?
Both prisoners and prison staff may use fish to belittle new, first-time inmates. It has appeared in popular media, including the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption, as well as in a 2005 episode of the TV show Prison Break, which contains the fan favorite line “Welcome to Prisneyland, fish.”
Once again, in drag culture, fish/fishy/serving fish are taken as compliments, but, elsewhere, likening female genitalia to a fish is offensive.
More examples of fish:
“Walking a dog down the streets of LA is like walking the new fish down a crowded row of prison cells in a movie.”
—@shelbyfero, October 2018
Note
This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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