fishwife
Americannoun
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fishwives
plural
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a woman who sells fish.
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a coarse-mannered, vulgar-tongued woman.
noun
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a woman who sells fish
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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.
See Examples For:
Betty! also completes something of a trilogy for Peake, who has previously written plays about two other pioneering real-life women - champion cyclist Beryl Burton and Hull fishwife Lillian Bilocca.
From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2022
“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
Alloa-born artist David Allan created drawings of ordinary people going about their daily lives in Edinburgh, including soldiers, coalmen, fishwives, sedan chair porters, firemen and officers of the city guard.
From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2021
In Sutcliffe’s sepia-toned prints, Whitby appears misty, moody and — if you replace the somberly dressed fishwives with tourists — almost identical to today.
From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2015
But that was the Ryan Women: fishwives to the marrow, they were always ready to fight and knew the places that would cut deepest.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 9, 2012
August justices of the Supreme 'Court, split with feuds, shrilled at one another like fishwives.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Questing Beast ran into them behind, knocking the King flat “Beware! Beware!” cried all the retainers, fishwives, falconers, farriers, fletchers, and other well-wishers who were assembled within.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
