FISH

fish

(noun) any of various mostly cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates usually having scales and breathing through gills; “the shark is a large fish”; “in the living room there was a tank of colorful fish”

fish

(noun) the flesh of fish used as food; “in Japan most fish is eaten raw”; “after the scare about foot-and-mouth disease a lot of people started eating fish instead of meat”; “they have a chef who specializes in fish”

Pisces, Pisces the Fishes, Fish

(noun) the twelfth sign of the zodiac; the sun is in this sign from about February 19 to March 20

Pisces, Fish

(noun) (astrology) a person who is born while the sun is in Pisces

fish

(verb) catch or try to catch fish or shellfish; “I like to go fishing on weekends”

fish, angle

(verb) seek indirectly; “fish for compliments”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Noun

FISH (uncountable)

(genetics) Acronym of fluorescent in situ hybridization: a molecular cytogenetic technique used to identify whether a DNA sample has a specific sequence.

Etymology

Proper noun

Fish

A surname.

Etymology 1

Noun

fish (countable and uncountable, plural fish or fishes)

(countable) A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.

(archaic or loosely) Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.

(uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.

(uncountable) 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, derogatory, slang) A woman.

(countable, slang) An easy victim for swindling.

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

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

(nautical) A purchase used to fish the anchor.

(countable, nautical) A torpedo.

(zoology) A paraphyletic grouping of the following extant taxonomic groups

Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebra)

Class Petromyzontida, the lampreys (no jaw)

Within infraphylum Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates (also including Tetrapoda))

Class Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays

Superclass Osteichthyes, bony fish.

(cartomancy) The thirty-fourth Lenormand card.

Usage notes

The collective plural of fish is normally fish in the UK, except in archaic texts where fishes may be encountered; in the US, fishes is encountered as well, but much less commonly. When referring to two or more kinds of fish, the plural is fishes.

Synonyms

• (potential swindling victim): mark

• (card game): Go Fish

• (bad poker player): donkey, donk

Hyponyms

• (aquatic cold-blooded vertabrae with gills): Cephalaspidomorphi, Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes

• (food): seafood

Etymology 2

Deverbal from to fish (etymology 3).

Noun

fish (plural fishes)

A period of time spent fishing.

An instance of seeking something.

Etymology 3

Verb

fish (third-person singular simple present fishes, present participle fishing, simple past and past participle fished)

(intransitive) To hunt fish or other aquatic animals.

(transitive) To search (a body of water) for something other than fish.

(fishing, transitive) To use as bait when fishing.

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

(intransitive, followed by "for" or "around for") To talk to people in an attempt to get them to say something, or seek to obtain something by artifice.

(intransitive, cricket) Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.

(nautical, transitive) 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).

(nautical, transitive) To hoist the flukes of.

Synonyms

• (try to catch a fish): angle, drop in a line

• (try to find something): rifle, rummage

• (attempt to gain (compliments, etc)): angle

Etymology 4

Noun

fish (plural fishes)

(obsolete) A counter, used in various games.

Source: Wiktionary


Fish, n. Etym: [F. fiche peg, mark, fr. fisher to fix.]

Definition: A counter, used in various games.

Fish, n.; pl. Fishes, or collectively, Fish. Etym: [OE. fisch, fisc, fis, AS. fisc; akin to D. visch, OS. & OHG. fisk, G. fisch, Icel. fiskr, Sw. & Dan. fisk, Goth. fisks, L. piscis, Ir. iasg. Cf. Piscatorial. In some cases, such as fish joint, fish plate, this word has prob. been confused with fish, fr. F. fichea peg.]

1. A name loosely applied in popular usage to many animals of diverse characteristics, living in the water.

2. (Zoöl.)

Definition: An oviparous, vertebrate animal usually having fins and a covering scales or plates. It breathes by means of gills, and lives almost entirely in the water. See Pisces.

Note: The true fishes include the Teleostei (bony fishes), Ganoidei, Dipnoi, and Elasmobranchii or Selachians (sharks and skates). Formerly the leptocardia and Marsipobranciata were also included, but these are now generally regarded as two distinct classes, below the fishes.

3. pl.

Definition: The twelfth sign of the zodiac; Pisces.

4. The flesh of fish, used as food.

5. (Naut.) (a) A purchase used to fish the anchor. (b) A piece of timber, somewhat in the form of a fish, used to strengthen a mast or yard.

Note: Fish is used adjectively or as part of a compound word; as, fish line, fish pole, fish spear, fish-bellied. Age of Fishes. See under Age, n., 8.

– Fish ball, fish (usually salted codfish) shared fine, mixed with mashed potato, and made into the form of a small, round cake. [U.S.]

– Fish bar. Same as Fish plate (below).

– Fish beam (Mech.), a beam one of whose sides (commonly the under one) swells out like the belly of a fish. Francis.

– Fish crow (Zoöl.), a species of crow (Corvus ossifragus), found on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It feeds largely on fish.

– Fish culture, the artifical breeding and rearing of fish; pisciculture.

– Fish davit. See Davit.

– Fish day, a day on which fish is eaten; a fast day.

– Fish duck (Zoöl.), any species of merganser.

– Fish fall, the tackle depending from the fish davit, used in hauling up the anchor to the gunwale of a ship.

– Fish garth, a dam or weir in a river for keeping fish or taking them easily.

– Fish glue. See Isinglass.

– Fish joint, a joint formed by a plate or pair of plates fastened upon two meeting beams, plates, etc., at their junction; -- used largely in connecting the rails of railroads.

– Fish kettle, a long kettle for boiling fish whole.

– Fish ladder, a dam with a series of steps which fish can leap in order to ascend falls in a river.

– Fish line, or Fishing line, a line made of twisted hair, silk, etc., used in angling.

– Fish louse (Zoöl.), any crustacean parasitic on fishes, esp. the parasitic Copepoda, belonging to Caligus, Argulus, and other related genera. See Branchiura.

– Fish maw (Zoöl.), the stomach of a fish; also, the air bladder, or sound.

– Fish meal, fish desiccated and ground fine, for use in soups, etc.

– Fish oil, oil obtained from the bodies of fish and marine animals, as whales, seals, sharks, from cods' livers, etc.

– Fish owl (Zoöl.), a fish-eating owl of the Old World genera Scotopelia and Ketupa, esp. a large East Indian species (K. Ceylonensis).

– Fish plate, one of the plates of a fish joint.

– Fish pot, a wicker basket, sunk, with a float attached, for catching crabs, lobsters, etc.

– Fish pound, a net attached to stakes, for entrapping and catching fish; a weir. [Local, U.S.] Bartlett.

– Fish slice, a broad knife for dividing fish at table; a fish trowel.

– Fish slide, an inclined box set in a stream at a small fall, or ripple, to catch fish descending the current. Knight.

– Fish sound, the air bladder of certain fishes, esp. those that are dried and used as food, or in the arts, as for the preparation of isinglass.

– Fish story, a story which taxes credulity; an extravagant or incredible narration. [Colloq. U.S.] Bartlett.

– Fish strainer. (a) A metal colander, with handles, for taking fish from a boiler. (b) A perforated earthenware slab at the bottom of a dish, to drain the water from a boiled fish.

– Fish trowel, a fish slice.

– Fish weir or wear, a weir set in a stream, for catching fish.

– Neither fish nor flesh (Fig.), neither one thing nor the other.

Fish, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Fished; p. pr. & vb. n. Fishing.]

1. To attempt to catch fish; to be employed in taking fish, by any means, as by angling or drawing a net.

2. To seek to obtain by artifice, or indirectly to seek to draw forth; as, to fish for compliments. Any other fishing question. Sir W. Scott.

Fish, v. t. Etym: [OE. fischen, fisken, fissen, AS. fiscian; akin to G. fischen, OHG. fisc, Goth. fisk. See Fish the animal.]

1. To catch; to draw out or up; as, to fish up an anchor.

2. To search by raking or sweeping. Swift.

3. To try with a fishing rod; to catch fish in; as, to fish a stream. Thackeray.

4. To strengthen (a beam, mast, etc.), or unite end to end (two timbers, railroad rails, etc.) by bolting a plank, timber, or plate to the beam, mast, or timbers, lengthwise on one or both sides. See Fish joint, under Fish, n. To fish the anchor. (Naut.) See under Anchor.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



RESET




Word of the Day

29 March 2024

FAULTFINDING

(adjective) tending to make moral judgments or judgments based on personal opinions; “a counselor tries not to be faultfinding”


Do you know this game?

Wordscapes

Wordscapes is a popular word game consistently in the top charts of both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The Android version has more than 10 million installs. This guide will help you get more coins in less than two minutes of playing the game. Continue reading Wordscapes: Get More Coins