fishwife
Americannoun
-
a woman who sells fish.
-
a coarse-mannered, vulgar-tongued woman.
noun
-
a woman who sells fish
-
a coarse scolding woman
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fishwife
First recorded in 1375–1425, fishwife is from the late Middle English word fisshwyf. See fish, wife
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.
Her high-profile roles have been peppered with projects like a concept album about the Pendle Witch Trials, playing Hamlet on stage - and now writing a play about a Hull fishwife.
From BBC • Oct. 25, 2017
“Angela Carter” is a flickering entity, part fishwife and part fairy.
From Slate • Mar. 14, 2017
A Canadian waitress who swears like a fishwife goes on holiday to Boracay.
From New York Times • Jun. 1, 2016
In Part 2, we turn to the story of glamorous and inaccessible Mathilde—who, we learn, was born in France, as Aurélie, her mother a fishwife in Nantes, her father a stonemason.
From The New Yorker • Nov. 2, 2015
Once safely on the north bank, I asked a cheerful fishwife the way to The George, where I found Falconer eating his supper—fish, again.
From "The Shakespeare Stealer" by Gary L. Blackwood
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.
