Fisherman

How to spell fisherman

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce fisherman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fisherman mean?

1. nounA person who catches fish, either for a living or as a sport.

Fisherman in a sentence

• The fisherman set out before dawn to check his nets.

• Every local fisherman knows which stretch of the river holds trout.

Where does fisherman come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound built from two very old Germanic parts. The first element comes from Old English 'fiscere', meaning 'one who fishes', formed from 'fisc' (fish) and the agent ending '-ere', which produced the modern '-er' found in worker, baker, and singer. The second element is 'man', the Old English word for a human being, which became attached to occupational terms during the medieval period. The combined form 'fisherman' appears in English from the early 1500s, replacing the older simple noun 'fisher', which had carried the same meaning on its own for centuries. The spelling stays reassuringly regular: it is simply 'fisher' plus 'man', so the trickiest point is remembering the silent middle and the single 's' after the 'fi'.

How the word is built

• fish (the animal/catch)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)
• man (person)

Words that sound like fisherman

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• fishermen: More than one person who catches fish, either for a living or for sport.