overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

fish.

A typically cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills; any vertebrate that is not a tetrapod.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/fɪʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/fɪ̝ʃ/Australia/fɘʃ/New-Zealand
  1. A typically cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills; any vertebrate that is not a tetrapod.

    countable
    Salmon is a fish.
    The fishmonger sells fishes from all over the world.
  2. Any vertebrate, including tetrapods.

    countable · uncountable
  3. Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.

    archaic · broadly · countable · uncountable
  4. Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water. Now used in combination: (e.g., starfish, cuttlefish, jellyfish, etc).

    archaic · broadly · countable · uncountable
  5. Cod; codfish.

    Newfoundland · countable · uncountable
  6. The flesh of the fish used as food.

    uncountable
    The seafood pasta had lots of fish but not enough pasta.
    Though Lena is a vegetarian, she doesn't have any problem with eating fish.
  7. An aquatic or semiaquatic animal suitable for consumption during fasting on Fridays during Lent.

    countable · uncountable
  8. A card game in which the object is to obtain cards in pairs or sets of four (depending on the variation), by asking the other players for cards of a particular rank.

    uncountable
  9. An easy victim for swindling.

    countable · slang
  10. A bad poker player. Compare shark (a good poker player).

    countable · slang
  11. A makeshift overlapping longitudinal brace, originally shaped roughly like a fish, used to temporarily repair or extend a spar or mast of a ship.

    countable
  12. A purchase used to fish the anchor.

    countable · uncountable
  13. A torpedo (self-propelled explosive device).

    countable · slang
  14. The thirty-fourth Lenormand card.

    countable · uncountable
  15. A (feminine) woman. (See also fishy.)

    derogatory · positive · slang · sometimes · uncountable
  16. A new (usually vulnerable) prisoner.

    countable · slang · uncountable
  17. A male homosexual; a gay man.

    Jamaica · countable · derogatory · offensive · uncountable
  18. A drag queen or transgender woman who looks like a cisgender woman.

    countable · uncountable
  19. A spaceship.

    countable · rare · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English fisch, from Old English fisċ (“fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *fisk, from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz (“fish”), from Proto-Indo-European *piskós (“fish”). Cognates Cognate with Yola wish (“fish”), North Frisian fasch, fask, Fesk (“fish”), Saterland Frisian Fisk (“fish”), West Frisian fisk (“fish”), Cimbrian biss, visch, viss (“fish”), Dutch vis (“fish”), Dutch Low Saxon and Mòcheno visch (“fish”), German Fisch (“fish”), German Low German Fösch (“fish”), Luxembourgish Fësch (“fish”), Yiddish פֿיש (fish, “fish”), Danish, Elfdalian, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish fisk (“fish”), Faroese and Icelandic fiskur (“fish”), Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍃 (fisks, “fish”), Crimean Gothic fisct (“fish”). Compare Irish iasc (“fish”), Latin piscis (“fish”).

noun/fɪʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/fɪ̝ʃ/Australia/fɘʃ/New-Zealand
  1. A period of time spent fishing.

    The fish at the lake didn't prove successful.
  2. An instance of seeking something.

    Merely two fishes for information told the whole story.
Where this word comes from

Deverbal from to fish (etymology 3).

verb/fɪʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/fɪ̝ʃ/Australia/fɘʃ/New-Zealand
  1. To hunt fish or other aquatic animals in a body of water, or to collect coral or pearls from the bottom of the sea.

    intransitive · transitive
    We went fishing for crabs by the pier.
    She went to the river to fish for trout.
  2. To search (a body of water) for something other than fish.

    transitive
    They fished the surrounding lakes for the dead body.
  3. To use as bait when fishing.

    transitive
  4. To (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects.

    intransitive
    Why are you fishing through my things?
    He was fishing for the keys in his pocket.
  5. To talk to people in an attempt to get them to say something, or seek to obtain something by artifice.

    intransitive
    The detective visited the local pubs fishing around for more information.
    The actors loitered at the door, fishing for compliments.
  6. Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.

    intransitive
  7. To repair (a spar or mast) by fastening a beam or other long object (often called a fish) over the damaged part (see Noun above).

    transitive
  8. To hoist the flukes of.

    transitive
  9. To draw or guide (a wire or cable) by means of fish tape.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Old English fiscian, from Proto-West Germanic *fiskōn, from Proto-Germanic *fiskōną. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian fiskje (“to fish”), Dutch vissen (“to fish”), German fischen (“to fish”), Limburgish vésche, vèsse (“to fish”), Luxembourgish fëschen (“to fish”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk fiske (“to fish”), Faroese, Icelandic and Swedish fiska (“to fish”), Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍉𐌽 (fiskōn, “to fish”).

noun/fɪʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/fɪ̝ʃ/Australia/fɘʃ/New-Zealand
  1. A counter, used in various games.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from French fiche (“peg, mark”).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

fish has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

fish studiofish workshello, fish

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.