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

There’s a long list of racist stereotypes white people fish out of the bottom drawer to slander Black people, and in her post Swiatkowski throws out a few of them.

Read more on Salon

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?”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“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.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"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.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• discover 
• examine 
• scrutinize 
• snoop