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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

ish.

somewhat, reasonably, fairly

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adv/ɪʃ/
  1. somewhat, reasonably, fairly

    colloquial · not-comparable
    The exam went well... mostly... ish.
    "Was the film any good?" – "Ish."
  2. about, approximately

    colloquial · not-comparable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *-iskos Proto-Germanic *-iskaz Proto-West Germanic *-isk Old English -isċ Middle English -isch English -ishbf. English ish Back-formation from -ish.

noun/ɪʃ/
  1. The letter which stands for the sh sound /ʃ/ in Pitman shorthand.

Where this word comes from

From Pitman ess and eff, which it resembles phonetically and graphically, and the sound it represents. The change in vowel probably reflects the familiar suffix -ish.

noun/ɪʃ/
  1. An instalment of a periodical; an issue.

    dated · slang
Where this word comes from

Phonetic spelling of the clipping of issue.

intj/ɪʃ/
  1. ick, yuck

    Canada · US · informal · regional
noun/ɪʃ/
  1. Shit (in various senses).

    euphemistic · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From earlier isht, a minced oath and metathetic alteration of shit. Possibly onomatopoeic from being inspired by the sound of the word shit when backmasked in clean or radio edits of hip-hop songs.

verb/ɪʃ/
  1. Pronunciation spelling of is.

    alt-of · pronunciation-spelling
Where this word comes from

From is.

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ish studioish workshello, ish

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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.