Fish Definition
fĭsh
fished, fishes, fishing
noun
fishes
Any of three classes (jawless, cartilaginous, and bony fishes) of coldblooded vertebrate animals living in water and having fins, permanent gills for breathing, and, usually, scales.
Webster's New World
Any of various jawless aquatic craniates, including the lampreys and hagfishes.
American Heritage Medicine
Any animal living in water only, as a dolphin, crab, or oyster.
Shellfish, jellyfish.
Webster's New World
The flesh of a fish used as food.
Webster's New World
A person thought of as like a fish, as in being easily lured by bait, lacking intelligence or emotion, etc.
Webster's New World
verb
fished, fishes, fishing
To catch or try to catch fish, shrimps, etc. in.
To fish a stream.
Webster's New World
To look for something by feeling one's way; grope.
Fished in both pockets for a coin.
American Heritage
To try to get something indirectly or by cunning.
Webster's New World
To catch or try to catch fish, or shrimps, lobsters, etc.
Webster's New World
To grope.
Webster's New World
adjective
Of fish or fishing.
Webster's New World
Selling fish.
Webster's New World
abbreviation
(genetics) Fluorescent in-situ hybridization; a technique used to identify whether a DNA sample has a specific sequence.
Wiktionary
idiom
fish or cut bait
- To proceed with an activity or abandon it altogether.
American Heritage
like a fish out of water
- Completely unfamiliar with one's surroundings or activity.
American Heritage
neither fish nor fowl
- Having no specific characteristics; indefinite.
American Heritage
other fish to fry
- Other matters to attend to:
He declined to come along to the movie, saying he had other fish to fry.
American Heritage
bigger fish to fry
- other, more important things to attend to
Webster's New World
Idioms, Phrasal Verbs Related to Fish
- fish or cut bait
- like a fish out of water
- neither fish nor fowl
- other fish to fry
- bigger fish to fry
- drink like a fish
- fish in troubled waters
- fish or cut bait
- fish out
- like a fish out of water
- neither fish nor fowl
- the Fishes
Origin of Fish
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From Middle English, from Old English fisc, from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz (compare West Frisian/Swedish fisk, Dutch vis, German Fisch), from Proto-Indo-European *pik̑sk̑os, *pisḱ- (compare Irish iasc, Latin piscis, Russian пискарь (piskárĭ) 'groundling', Sanskrit picchā 'calf (leg)', picchila, picchala 'slimy, slippery').
From Wiktionary
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From Old English fiscian, from Proto-Germanic *fiskōną.
From Wiktionary
Middle English from Old English fisc
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
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From Wiktionary
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