Fish

How to spell fish

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fish

What does fish mean?

1. nounA cold-blooded animal that lives in water and breathes through gills.
2. verbTo try to catch fish, or to search for something by reaching or groping.

Fish in a sentence

• noun

  The children watched a bright orange fish swim around the tank.

• verb

  They like to fish in the river every summer weekend.

• noun

  She ordered grilled fish with a side of vegetables.

• verb

  He began to fish around in his pocket for the spare key.

Where does fish come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Fish comes from the Old English word fisc, which referred to any creature that lives in water, and it traces back to the older Germanic root fiskaz with the same meaning. The same ancestor produced the Dutch vis, the German Fisch, and the Latin piscis, all describing the same kind of cold-blooded, gilled water animal. The spelling settled early and has stayed remarkably plain, with the 'sc' of fisc simplifying to the modern 'sh' sound and spelling over the medieval centuries. The verb sense, meaning to try to catch fish, is recorded from the earliest English texts and grew naturally out of the noun. Because the word is so old and so regular, its spelling poses very few traps for a modern writer.

How the word is built

• fish (whole word, no affixes; from Old English fisc)