fish out of water
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.79 in modern English
26
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A person in unfamiliar and often uncomfortable surroundings.
Example Sentences
- "[I]nto this queer assembly, something of a fish out of water and wholly out of his element, strode Cherry Bim, that redoubtable man."
- "A pitcher at bat is usually considered such a fish out of water that he is expected to foul, ground or strike out."
- "“The basis of this show is fish out of water,” said the executive producer, Quincy Jones, the music impresario who has never before put his name on a television series but whose work as producer of Michael Jackson's albums won him respect in Hollywood as a canny judge of public tastes."
- "Many stay-at-home fathers find that they are fish out of water, too."
Etymology
* Earliest recorded uses: "fish out of the water" (1585, Lamentable Complaint of Commonality), "Fishes out of the Water" (1613, Samuel Purchas, Pilgrimage). * Earliest use of metaphor by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales: Prologue (c. 1405) as "fissh þᵗ is waterlees". Compare also the antonymous French comme un poisson dans l'eau, German wie ein Fisch im Wasser.