fish out

verb

1. (tr, adverb) to find or extract (something)

   to fish keys out of a pocket

Idioms and Phrases

Also, fish up . Discover and retrieve something from a pile or store. For example, She finally fished out the right letter from the files , or He fished up a scandal for the paper to run in the early edition . This usage likens pulling fish from the sea to finding something. [Mid-1600s]

Deplete the fish in a body of water by fishing, as in This stream is completely fished out .

Example Sentences

A numbers man more than a people person, he’s a fish out of water in Atlanta, as he spells out in the song “How Can I Call This Home?”

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“And I think we’re going to see in the next weeks and months that there’s huge numbers of birds out at this project, and likely a lot of fish out there,” he said.

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Recently Crowder spoke with The Times about his Southern background, including his upbringing in a liberal family in a conservative area and his current life as a fish out of water living in Los Angeles.

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"I wasn't beaten up like my character in Boarders is, but the feeling of not fully belonging was always there - I felt a bit like a fish out of water and isolated at times," he tells the BBC.

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And then she will dry her eyes, fish out a few glad rags, throw on a little makeup and get a blowout..

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Related Words

• discover 
• examine 
• scrutinize 
• snoop