Definition
nounA typically cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.
nounA typically cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gill; any vertebrate that is not a tetrapod.
Sentence Examples
I'm not a real fish, I'm just a mere plushy.
I'd rather be a bird than a fish.
A whale is a fish. True or false?
Word Origin & History
From Middle English fisch, from Old English fisċ (“fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *fisk, from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz (“fish”), from Proto-Indo-European *peysk- (“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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature, volume IV:
"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."
— 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:
"Include low-mercury fish in your diet (such as salmon) and eat at least five servings a day of fruit and vegetables, especially dark leafy greens, broccoli, and cauliflower. Avoid saturated and trans fats, which may hasten brain aging."
— 2012 March, “Flexing your brain”, in Consumer Reports on Health, volume 24, number 3, page 9:
"Since the semi-aquatic beaver was a skilled swimmer, the Church declared it to be a fish for dietary purposes."
— 2017 April 7, sjchurchadmin, Saint Joachim Catholic Church:
"Throughout the Catholic Church's long history, archbishops and other prominent church leaders have made numerous declarations about which animals can be considered "fish for the purposes of Lent, even if those animals have virtually no similarities to fish in a scientific sense."
— 2023 February 20, William Taylor Potter, The Daily Advertiser: