fish
/fɪʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.90 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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
noun
Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.
Archaic; Countable; Uncountable
noun
Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.
Archaic; Countable; Uncountable
noun
An aquatic or semiaquatic animal suitable for consumption during fasting on Fridays during Lent.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Salmon is a fish."
- "The fishmonger sells fishes from all over the world."
- "Ichthyologists study the fish of the world."
- "We have many fish in our aquarium."
- "The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster… as men have been willing to give them all the name of fishes, it is wisest for us to conform."
- "Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /fɪʃ/
- British English: /fɪʃ/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law, People.