fishy
Americanadjective
adjective
-
of, involving, or suggestive of fish
-
abounding in fish
-
informal suspicious, doubtful, or questionable
their leaving at the same time looked fishy
-
dull and lifeless
a fishy look
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of fishy
Explanation
Anything fishy smells, tastes, or resembles a fish in some way. Suspicious people and situations are also called fishy. Since this word has two meanings, context is key. If you say something is fishy, it probably means you think something is suspicious. If you’re sitting next to someone eating a tuna sandwich, though, you could just mean you smell a fishy odor. Fishy usually refers to situations that seem suspect or shady. A guy looking over your shoulder while you use an ATM is fishy. A student looking at her arm for answers during a test is fishy. Anything fishy is suspicious — somebody’s up to something.
Vocabulary lists containing fishy
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
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Top Ten Relevant Words: Moby Dick, Chapters 1-16
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Mexikid
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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:
Nadal spoke to WSJ about his fishy breakfast, exercising without pain and his love of classic film.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
And T-Pain admitted he’s actually a #DoorDashPartner only after users began to smell something fishy.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026
To help cut down the fishy smell, top the fish with your choice of acid, like fresh lemon juice or rice vinegar.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026
More than a year ago, federal officials noticed something fishy about a Glendale-based doctor: she had collected more in Medicare Botox reimbursements than any other provider in the nation.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2026
She didn’t sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale, fishy eyes narrowed.
From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
As soon as I arrived in Livingston Manor, a hamlet around 120 miles north of New York City, my life became notably fishier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 2026
Faced with some stiff competition, one savvy float-building team at this year’s Rose Parade still managed to reel in a Guinness World Record title by setting its sights on something decidedly fishier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 3, 2026
Fish vary in their omega-3 levels and generally the fishier they taste the more omega-3 fats they have — such as tuna, salmon, deep sea perch, trevally, mackeral and snook.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2023
The kind from my coastal neck of the woods eats fishier things, and although I have never eaten one, I have eaten other seaside birds, and they can taste like low tide.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2021
Brimming with confidence, the Horrible Incorrigibles made their incognito exit, thus narrowly missing the fishy arrival of Edward Ashton and the even fishier return of Master Gogolev and his herring.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
Mackerel is among the fishiest of fish, so I’m stoked by the clean flavor of the silvery specimen I encounter at Barrel & Crow.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2015
Indeed, one of the fishiest things about this entire story is that the Hoax of Hollywood conference lasted just one day.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 13, 2013
I recently visited some great friends in the Florida Panhandle and got to hang out in Destin, one of the neatest harbors and fishiest towns on the coast.
From Time Magazine Archive
Baja, Calif. Baja and the Sea of Cortez, featuring Cabo San Lucas and the East Cape region, is perhaps the fishiest place on earth.
From Time Magazine Archive
I never seen a pack o’ fools look fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells you that looked the fishiest.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
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.
