fish out
Britishverb
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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]
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Deplete the fish in a body of water by fishing, as in This stream is completely fished out .
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.
"I really enjoyed the way that Stagg was not interested in ingratiating himself with anybody," he told BBC Culture correspondent David Sillito, calling him "a real fish out of water in this situation".
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Again, I feel like a fish out of water.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
If you went in hoping to fish out a couple of rocks and an old boot, though, it wasn’t so hard to locate exactly what you were looking for.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
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.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2025
She wouldn’t be able to smoke them out—her five remaining matches had perished at the same time as the kudu meat—but perhaps she could use a long stick to fish out the honey.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
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.
