fishy
Americanadjective
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of, involving, or suggestive of fish
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abounding in fish
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informal suspicious, doubtful, or questionable
their leaving at the same time looked fishy
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dull and lifeless
a fishy look
Other Word Forms
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.
Trades that would be slam-dunk criminal cases if they were mapped onto the stock market are, in prediction markets, either a little bit fishy or the mark of a savvy trader.
From Slate • Apr. 24, 2026
"Also, we have corporate sanctioned mobile devices and this came in via his personal phone. So that made him think this was potentially a little murky, a little fishy."
From BBC • Mar. 2, 2026
Users of the new Moonshot model quickly noticed something fishy: Kimi K2.5 referred to itself as Claude.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 28, 2026
White said UFC confronted the fighter and his lawyer prior to the match and were given reassurances that nothing fishy was going on.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026
The plan was as follows: We would drive by Connor's house, and if anything seemed fishy, we would park down the block.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
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.
