phishing
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of phishing
C21: from fishing in the sense of catching the unwary by offering bait; computer-hacker slang often replaces f with ph
Explanation
Phishing is a scam in which someone emails a victim intending to trick them into revealing bank numbers, passwords, or other sensitive information. Phishing messages often appear to come from reputable companies. Phishing is a common cybercrime involving fraudulent messages that look very real. The person receiving the email may believe it's from their bank, for example, asking them to confirm their social security number or credit card details. With this information, the attacker can move to identity theft, installing malware, or stealing money directly from the victim's account. Hackers reportedly started using this term around 1995, influenced by phreak, a slang word for someone who hacks into a phone system.
Vocabulary lists containing phishing
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The ads, which came as paper mailers — in contrast to soon-to-be popular malware, pop-up ads and phishing emails — were decidedly less invasive and easily ignored.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
Financial firms are under attack by hackers using voice phishing to finagle sensitive data from employees, according to new research from Google’s threat-intelligence group.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
As good as it might have felt for a moment to receive that invitation, a moment is all most phishing scammers need to steal your information.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026
In a letter to Meta, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the feature could lead to an increase in online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks, the Indian Express newspaper reported.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
Once in a while I’d leak stuff about phishing scams.
From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin
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.
