Green’s Dictionary of Slang

smelling of (recent) sexual intercourse.

1884

‘Experiences of a Cunt Philosopher’ in Randiana 72: ‘If ever there was a maidenhead cooked its been bone [sic] in this room [...] Why, even the staircase smells fishy’.

see separate entry.

1. a bus that brings in new inmates.

1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 219: When he came in on the fish line this morning I was walking the yard with a guy who knew him in Tracy.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 14: Sister, did you see the fish line today? [...] They brought back my ex-old man, honey.

2. a line used to pull items from one cell to another.

2000

Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Fish Line: A line used to pull items from one cell to another.

see separate entry.

(US prison) the clothing and other necessities issued to a new inmate.

1990

S. Morgan Homeboy 167: Joe [...] was issued his fish roll: blue work shirt, denim pants, brogan shoes, socks, underwear, toothbrush and sack of state tobacco.

see fish-bowl n.

(US prison) a new inmate.

1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 47: Dey tries ev’ry new fish dey gets in dere – tries him th’ first night an’ sentences him t’ carry th’ bucket f’r a month.
1940		L.L. Stanley Men at Their Worst 187: One of our greatest problems in prison is that of keeping the ‘fish’ from the ‘wolves,’ or the young prisoners from the influence of the hardened criminals. (...) A glimpse into the Old Men’s Ward should convince the ‘new fish’ that crime pays poor dividends.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 67: He was chock-full of good advice for new fish.
1965		A. James America’s Homosexual Underground 159: Well if it ain’t doll face, that beautiful new fish.
1971		N. Cassady First Third 67: As a new ‘fish’ I was in for a time of it anyhow.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 2: Only the new ‘fish’ and the irregular visitors were disconcerted.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 26: Fishalso Fish Number An inmate new to a particular corrections system in any given state. […] (Archaic: new fish).
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] : fish n. 1(also new fish)a prison officer recently completed his training, or new to a prison.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] [T]he white power gangs eyed the new fish for good muscle.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 323: ‘Wanted to show the new fish the dogs’.

pertaining to the vagina (during or after intercourse).

1884

Randiana 72: If ever there was a maidenhead cooked its been done in this room since I’ve been out. Why, even the staircase smells fishy.

a general term of abuse, aimed at a female.

1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 45: fishcunts. Bitches.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 217: Shut it, Shortie, ya fishy cunt.

(US gay) sexual intercourse with a woman; thus a woman.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 81: fish-dinner 1. sex with a woman 2. any female.
1985		‘Jennifer Blowdryer’ Modern English 72: fish dinner (v): Eating cunt.

a general insult aimed at a woman; the implication is that her vagina smells.

2000		N. Barlay Crumple Zone 49: Wha’y’gonna do fishfanny?
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 fish-fanny, fishy fanny n. dirty unclean girl, sometimes accused of [...] fanny farting.

(US) the vagina (in the content of lesbian sex).

2004

M. De Leon Once Upon a Family Tree 74: ‘I thought Cari was strictly dickly.’ ‘Girl, the way she’s been dogged out by Yolie’s father, it’s no wonder she done turned to fish fillet’.

(UK juv.) a general insult, implying that someone has placed his finger(s) in a woman’s vagina and then failed to wash them, so his fingers supposedly smell of fish.

2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 fish fingers adj. name given to person who incessantly ‘fingers’ girls but neglects to wash the boiled anchovy smell off his hands afterwards.
2003		www.thepantsman.com 🌐 Word had already spread wide and fast about the fish-finger manoeuvre.

1. the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. a brothel.

1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 395/2: ca. 1850–1910.
1944		Roy Eldridge [song title] ‘Fish Market’.

3. (US campus) a women’s dormitory.

1969

Current Sl. III:3.

1. a womanizer, a promiscuous man.

c.1600		Shakespeare Hamlet II ii: pol.: Do you know me, my lord? ham.: Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. pol.: Not I, my lord.
1617		B. Riche Irish Hubbub 25: Him they call Senex Fornmicator, an old Fishmonger, that many years since ingrost the French pox.

2. a madame, a bawd.

1652		Mercurius Democritus 5 27 Apr.–5 May 36: The Fishmongers in Thames-Street [...] doubt they shall not have a Maid left for them to trade with, and so by that meanes their Cod is like to lye upon their hands as a dead Commodity.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 12 48/3: [advert] the wanton warbler — Jolly Fishmonger.

a prostitute.

1986–7

Maledicta IX 148: The compilers ought to have looked farther afield and found: […] fishmonger’s daughter.

the vagina.

1604		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 1 I ii: I had not saild a league in that great fishpond but I cast vp my very gall .
1607		E. Sharpham Cupid’s Whirligig II i: A horson otter, ile teach him fish in other mens ponds.
1650		H. Nevile Newes from the New Exchange 5: He that meanes to board her, must put off his doublet and swim, it being of the same size with a Fish-Pond.
1679–80		‘Jenny’s Answer to Sawney’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1893) VII:1 15: Guid faith! I’se keep close my two-leav’d Book, I’se will not trust him to gang between; / Lest my Fish-pond is spoil’d with his hook, because he hath ligged with a London Quean.
1683		Shirley Compleat Courtier 25: [My] little Fish-pond, Where you may angle with your muckle wand.
a.1700		‘Hampshire Miller’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) III 13: [She] was in a rage Because her husband he did Gage The Sluts Fish pond, that runs so clear.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 175: That men may cease to do amiss, / And not in other fish ponds fish.
[a.1800		Gentleman’s Garland n.p: Fishing in the Pond It is all my Delight. Fish you to the Bottom, And I’m sure you’ll Fish right].
c.1900		A. Cairene Sixfold Sensuality 43: The Earl having had his bait swallowed in his wife’s fishpond.

see separate entries.

sexual intercourse, esp. in the context of a conjugal right.

1997

Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: fish supper euph. chauvinistic Carnival knowledge (qv) to which, by rights, a husband is entitled at the end of the day. See also get up them stairs.

(US gay) the vagina of a heterosexual woman.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1988		H. Max Gay (S)language.

1. the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. sexual intercourse; thus have a bit of fish (on a fork), to have sexual intercourse.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(US) to perform cunnilingus.

1961

C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 172: I don’t want Mamie to catch me eating fish in her bed.

1. for an effeminate gay man to take the ‘feminine’, passive role during sex.

1941

G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.

2. of a male homosexual or lesbian, to give cunnilingus.

1965		K. Worthy Homosexual Generation Ch. xvi: A fish: A male homosexual who has a mouth homosexual relations with a female homosexual.
1994		R. Trouche Go Fish [film title].

3. (US gay) to become coy or flirtatious, i.e. to react like a teenage girl.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 81: fish 7. (adj) limp, heady, drooping, giddy [...] Verb forms to be [go] fish = to become coy, fluttery; to react to a situation as would an average teenager.

to go out looking for a sexually obliging woman; also in gay use, to seek a sexual partner.

1977		J. Jackman ‘Ports O Call’ in Fag Rag (Boston) Spring No. 19 in Jay & Young (1979) 152: I didn’t have to join the camping competitions or go ‘fishing’.
1999		D. Lypchuk ‘A dirty little story’ in eye mag. 8 July 🌐 They were both happy until she discovered that he was just on a fishing expedition and had been bragging about cracking Judy’s teacup to his friends.

of a man, to have sexual intercourse.

1997

N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 119: You slippin’ anyone the old fish?

(US black) money.

2000

Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 fishsticks Definition: money. Example: That Ho has a nice ass, but she’ll cost you alot of fishsticks!

1. an important, powerful person;also attrib.

1836		H.R. Howard Hist. of Virgil A. Stewart 139: He is a big fish— anything he says will be believed [DA].
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 174: That’s the doctrine, the nigger may be a big fish, but the white man is a whale.
1879		Sheffield Indep. 29 Oct. 3/2: He is, indeeed, a big fish for a political net.
1902		J.D. Corrothers Black Cat Club 64: So many uv ouh girls is a-lookin foh de big fish wid de gol’en gills; but de big fish don’t allus bite. An so we’s gittin’ a lot o’ crabbed, disapp’inted ole maids.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 14: Biggest fish in the pond are the sharepushers, confidence men, and the expert jewel thieves.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 108: I’m one of the big fish [...] Because my stuff’s the real stuff.
1960		N. Fitzgerald Candles Are All Out 34: You and I may be pretty big fish in Invermore.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 108: Newnes was a big fish.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 116: [They] had just about given up hope of finding one of the big fish.
1990		P. Hotz Muzukuru 89: I can’t understand why the big fish wants us to waste our time on you.
1999		Indep. Rev. 10 July 5: As attorney, his notoriety for ruthless prosecution of big-fish targets grew.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 17/1: bish fish 2 = king pin. 3 the General Manager of a prison. 4 the inmate who makes the most money in the prison .
2011		‘Jack Tunney’ Split Decision [ebook] I got a lot of guys noticing me. Big time guys. Bigger fish than Cardone. He’s a freakin’ sardine next to the guys got my back.

2. an important event, undertaking etc.

1864		J. Hay letter 30 June in Dennett Lincoln and the Civil War (1939) 198: I wish you to be there when they meet. It is a big fish. Mr Chase has resigned.
1925		Gleason & Taber Is Zat So? I i: He made a grand showing in the soldier bouts in France, though, so when we come back we starts to lookin’ for big fish.

3. (N.Z. prison) a white-collar criminal, esp. when involved with large sums of money .

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 17/1: big fish n. 1 a white-collar criminal, esp. one whose crime involved a large amount of money, or whose trial was well publicised.

in coaching, a passenger who is carried (and pays the coachman directly) but is not officially part of the way-bill.

1876

‘Some Road Slang Terms’ in Malet Annals of the Road 395: 4. Of Coachmen Bit of fish...A passenger not on the way-bill.

see under cold adj.

to defecate.

1654

Mercurius Fumigosus 26 22-30 Nov. 2: The eldest sister who had [...] drop’d a tail of Green-fish in the Chimney-corner.

(US) an unimportant person.

1961		L. Schecter Roger Maris 93: Maris may have been worried about being a little fish but the Yankees were figuring on him as a whale.
1973		‘Transcript of a recording of a meeting between the President and John Ehrlichman’ 15 Apr. 🌐 ehrlichman: There was, there was a cover story which Mardian and others cooked up, and, uh, Porter, corroborated the cover story, is now indictable for perjury. He’s a little fish who got caught in the net.
2001–2002		‘Rev. of Mr Deeds’ PopcornMonsters.com 🌐 This is his first time away from his small town and now he’s a little fish in a big pond and plus the fact that he doesn’t know what to do with all the money he’s inherited.

1. a promiscuous woman.

1798		‘Answer to Captain Morris’ in Hilaria 71: There [i.e. Ranelagh] girls are ‘loose fishes,’ pull’d up in their turns; /There wives are harpoon’d, and dull husbands get horns.
1801		Sporting Mag. June XVIII 159/2: Mr. Garrow.–This Madame Mari was a model woman perhaps? A. Quite the reverse. Q. Was she a loose fish, as my learned Friend terms it? A. He took her away from two men who kept her at the same time.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) IV 682: Was she a loose fish, she who was thought so chaste?

2. a prostitute.

1800		Sporting Mag. Nov. XVII 88/1: A loose fish at Drury-lane, lately observing a lady angling in this new style [etc.].
1810		The Satirist (N.Y.) July 60: Here you land [...] scarcely able to find your way through trunks, [...] band-boxes, Jews, Gentiles and loose fish.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 524: Those who are not unacquainted with haddocks, will understand the loose fish alluded to, who beset her doors, and accosted with smiles or insults every one that passed.

3. one who has no settled way of life.

1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London. 12 June 158/1: A game known among the loose fish who frequent races by the name of ‘the thimble-rig’.
1844		A. Smith Adventures of Mr Ledbury II 210: He is rather a loose fish.
1850		Thackeray Pendennis II 242: Our friend Clavering [...] who [...] is about as loose a fish as any in my acquaintance.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend II 240: Mr. Miles was a loose fish; a bachelor who had recently inherited the fortune of an old screw his uncle, and was spending thrift in all the traditional modes.
1861		Hills & Plains I 107: Young Budlee freely acknowledged himself to be a ‘loose fish’; he never made any pretence to good conduct.
1861		Empire (Sydney) 6 May 2/6: The first thing that strikes one [...] is the frequent reference to ‘fast’ and ‘Ioose’ fish. In the slang vocabulary [...] these phrases mean pretty much the same thing — i.e. a gentleman who has somewhat of a contempt for the proprieties and moralities.
c.1864		‘Paddy Miles and the Mermaid’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 12: You’re a very loose fish tho’ you look so delicious.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) May 181: He is not precisely a scamp; but he is certainly a ‘loose fish’.
1905		E.W. Hornung A Thief in the Night (1992) 284: ‘They might be brothers,’ rejoined Raffles, who knew all the loose fish about town.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 191: Your average lieutenant is a loose fish, and a disciplinarian to boot.

an eccentric person.

1789		J. O’Keeffe Highland Reel 21: You’re an odd fish.
1795		Sporting Mag. May VI 115/1: Odd fish, queer fish, strange fish, droll fish, / In short they be fish out of water.
1821		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Wife (1868) 259/2: I’m an odd fish, but, to be free, / I’m not the only oddity.
1830		J.B. Skillman N.Y. Police Reports 42: An odd fish, (O. Fish,) a celebrated son of Crispin, had been at that celebrated and never-suffciently-to-be-condemned place, called the Five Points.
1832		Hereford Times 3 Nov. 4/5: Description of a Sailor — He [...] is an odd fish.
1839		Comic Almanack Oct. 195: The noo orlines peepel is odd fishis.
1841		Western Times 4 Sept. 3/4: He is a very odd fish.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 194: The next odd fish stood forth.

a sorry person, a pathetic figure.

1913–14		Van Loan ‘Out of His Class’ in Taking the Count 184: I smiled at him [and] The poor fish blushed all over.
1919		Wodehouse ‘Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg’ in My Man Jeeves [ebook] Bicky, poor fish, absolutely on his uppers.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 43: I’m tired of being nice to every poor fish in school.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 28: You’ve been gone and married this poor fish of a bum medic.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 30: Poor fish, working themselves to death for starvation money!
1944		Nottingham Eve. Post 1 June 1/5: He suffered from gastritis, but describing hiom as a ‘very poor fish’, the chairman [...] announced a fine of £10.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 47: We can borrow them, can’t we, my poor fish?
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 52: Turn the other cheek, you poor fish.
1969		R. Rendell Best Man To Die (1981) 81: He tried to give me the impression his brother-in-law was something of a poor fish.

an odd or eccentric person.

1854		Thackeray Newcomes I 186: That nabob of ours is a queer fish.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 145: ‘Old Tom Copley,’ as he was called by his comrades, was emphatically a ‘queer fish’.
1882		Newcastle Courant 2 June 3/7: Among people you know there are many ‘queer fish’ who think and act in a way of their own, without being exactly amenable to a charge of lunacy.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 329: There are some queer fish amongst them [i.e. cabbies].
1909		Gem 23 Jan. 9: My uncle seems to be a queer old fish.
1929		M. Levin Reporter 63: Haines was a queer fish.
1935		A. Christie Three Act Tragedy (1964) 139: He’s a queer fish.

(Aus.) a shirker.

1986

R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 52: Timid fish: Someone who does not like hard work.

a suburbanite who works in the City.

1884

Graphic 27 Sept. 5/2: The tradesman shook his head, and explained that ‘fish-bagger’ was a contumelious term applied to those who live in good suburbs ‘without spending a penny there beyond rent for lodgings [...] He goes to town every morning with an empty bag, and returns [...] bringing a little pieve of fish [...] and even his groceries’.

(US black) a derog. term for a white person.

1963

H.S. Thompson letter 22 Nov. in Proud Highway (1997) 419: Every fish-belly in the nation is out in the open tonight.

(UK juv.) that portion of the hair that hangs down at the back of a mullet n.² haircut.

2001

OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 fish bits n. the long bits of hair at the back of a mullet hairstyle.

(US black) Friday night.

1946

Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 219: I know they’re briny ’cause they dug me with a brace of browns the other fish-black.

1. calculating, emotionless.

1856

Bath Chron. 20 Nov. 6/3: Luther doted on women. Don’t ask that of Calvin, for he was a cold, fish-brained austere man.

2. (UK juv.) stupid.

1933		Londonderry Sentinel 9 May 6/4: Observe also that it took this fishbrained fellow from Moville nearly two weeks to answer me, .
1934		Holmes & Grey Odor in the Court [film script] ‘I object to the word fish-brained.’ ‘Strike it out!’.
1946		(con. 1912) B. Marshall George Brown’s Schooldays 29: He must [...] see if the old man was really as fish-brained as he looked.
1982		Nat. Fisherman 63: 1-6 81: [T]his stuff ’bout not havin’ men time ta learn new skills while you’re ut fishin' is what our shacker, Mopbucket, ould call a real ‘fish-brained idea’.
2010		D. Whish-Wilson Line of Sight [ebook] ‘You fish-brained fucking moron’.
2017		C. Fayers Journey to Dragon Island 133: [T]he magicians in the castle would never expect a fish-brained scheme like this.

water, esp. when salted.

1599

Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 44: The churlish frampold waues gaue him his belly full of fish-broath.

a Roman Catholic.

1932		L.W. Merryweather ‘Argot of an Orphans’ Home’ in AS VII:6 401: fisheater, n. A Roman Catholic.
1958		(con. 1945) F. Davis Spearhead 118: The other man [...] looked like a priest. ‘Janowicz, you’re a fish eater. Go see what those two clowns are up to.’.
1972		B. Hannah Geronimo Rex 242: ‘He said a fish-eater.’ [...] ‘Some use that as an epithet, against Catholics.’.
1983		Maledicta VII 22: Roman Catholics were tagged with […] fish eater, and alliteratively, guppy gobbler.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 148: fish eater. A Roman Catholic, from the traditional R.C. abstention from meat on fast days.
1994		D. Ort My Mother Always Called Me by My Brother’s Name 19: ‘A fish eater. That's all I need. To be hounded by some goddamn lunatic Catholic’.
2004		C. Blount Birthright 297: ‘Sophia and I are both Catholic [...] I am a bona fide fish-eater’.
2014		(con. 1923) B.T. Bauer Gentlemen Bootleggers 96: ‘We have a Klan sheriff but our prosecuting attorney is a fish eater and he will do anything he can to fish the Klan’.
2017		A. Hood Morningstar [ebook] His Midwestern family viewed my mother as some kind of exotic creature because she was Italian and Catholic. Their nicknames for her—unbelievable now—were ‘wop’ and ‘fish eater,’ the latter because Catholics didn't eat meat on Fridays.

see separate entries.

a fishwife, both lit., i.e. a fish seller, and as pej.

1786		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Bozzy and Piozzi’ Works (1794) I 347: He [...] deem’d himself of much too high a rank, With vulgar fishfags to be forc’d to chat.
1814		letter from Cawnpore 14 Feb. in Calcutta Gaz. 10 Mar. 6/3: [A] Billingsgate Fish-Fag, who assailed at once the auditory and olfactory nerves of those around her. Indeed her slang and her fish *were both rather of the gross kind.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 30: Here many a Fish-fag sat and stunk.
1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 358: The drunken fish-fag, who takes the law on some of her companions for deformation of character.
1831		‘Gallery of 140 Comicalities’ Bell’s Life in London 24 June 1/3: Get out, you wagabond! get out, you circumwenting ould fish-fag!
1838		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 3 Feb. 107: Sturdy Irish beggars, fish-fags, smart-looking little prigs.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 264: A fish-fag’s ware isn’t more perishable than an ’untsman’s fame.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 196: I promised the venerable fish-fag his mother to take especial care of his what do you call ’ums – morals.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 14: An amazon of the market, otherwise known as a Billingsgate fish-fag.
c.1864		‘Paddy Miles and the Mermaid’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 14: You sweet little fish-fag, I’ll give you fair quarter.
1864		Sth Aus. Register (Adelaide, SA) 29 Nov. 2/6: [S]he behaved more like an intoxicated fishfag than like a lady who bad moved in good society. She ‘chaffed’ the counsel, used the most coarse and vulgar slang.
1864		Launceston Examiner (Tas.) 5 Apr.3/2: The honourable member has shown [...] the tone of a bully [...] and the language of a fish-fag.
1873		Sl. Dict. 162: Fishfag [...] now any scolding, vixenish foul-mouthed woman.
1884		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 26 Jan. 6/1: She used to be a ‘Scotch fish fag’.
1884		Sporting Gaz. (London) 26 July 934/3: The House of Lords seems to have the same irritating effect on Professor ROGERS that the London Monument had on the notorious fishfag [i.e. ‘Cursing Poll’ of Billingsgate].
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 28: Fish-fag, a foul-mouthed woman.

(Aus.) tight short male bathing trunks.

2012

B. Moore ‘Aus. Sl.’ paper presented to Leicester U. Slang Workshop, Sept. 2012 n.p.: The speedo variety [of trunks] developed an extraordinary number of risqué or simply curious synonyms: [...] fish frighteners.

(US black) a party to which guests bring refreshment, or pay to attend, c.f. rent party; thus as adj., well supplied with money.

1929		T. Gordon Born to Be (1975) 117: The Ethiopeans of the district were having their annual Fish Fry.
1949		Louis Jordan ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’ 🎵 You don’t have to pay the usual admission / If you’re a cook or a waiter or a good musician. / So if you happen to be just passin’ by / Stop in at the Saturday night fish fry!
1960		(con. 1940s) G. Morrill Dark Sea Running 11: Don’t stand around like a flock of old whores at a fish fry. Move.
1961		R. Gover One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding 22: He so fishfry flush he kin hardly git his mothahhumpin hands roun that wad!
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 156: Just some of us girls got together to fry some fish.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 90: Little was heard from the colored folk [...] save for the occasional house-rent party or fish fry.

see separate entries.

1. in pl., the fingers, thus in cite 1895, the fist [the term, derived f. 19C naut. use, was UK and then moved to US black use by 1930s].

1570		Marriage of Wit and Science V i: Gods fish hookkes and knowe you not mee.
1810		C. Dibdin Jew Pedlar 1: Vat do you do vid your fish-hooks in my box?
1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 20: We observed a conish cove, who sported an elegant dross-scout, drag, and chats. This was too much for our fish-hook fingers. We attempted to snib.
1828		‘The Song of the Young Prig’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 171: My fingers are fish-hooks, sirs.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 72: The shallow boy [...] darted his fish-hooks into his boddy-bag, and began angling under his armpits [...] ‘I’m as chatty as a bencooling duck’.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 11 May 4/4: There be will no bad language used ta the Carnival this year. In case those taking part in the procession do not keep in file, they will get a dose of fish-hooks.
1925		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 11 Apr. 13/7: A couple of mug demons caught me red handed, with my fish in a bookmaker’s bag.
1935		‘George Orwell’ Clergyman’s Daughter (1986) 172: Brrh! Perishing Jesus! Ain’t my fish-hooks blue!
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1945		R.S. Close Love me Sailor 11: ‘Here, dig your fishhooks into one end of the chest there, Ern.’ We swung the chest off the floor between us.
1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 305: Abu grabs what per cent he has a fishhook on.

2. (N.Z.) a problem.

1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 45/1: fish hooks difficulties; eg ‘Any fish hooks in the report?’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

1. (US ) a non-specific (brass) wind instrument; cit. 1866 poss. refers to another instrument.

1843		Gleaner (Manchester, NH) 2 Dec. n.p.: The man that blows the fish-horn.
1856		F. Cozzens Sparrowgrass Papers 38: Mrs. Sparrowgrass asked me who that was ‘blowing a fish-horn’ [bugle].
1866		Night Side of N.Y. 76: If any man had put down a tin whistle in the pot, it would have run to a wagon load of fish horns.
1890		Illus. London News 25 Jan. 21/2: Bringing In the New Year in New York [...] Drum and fife bands playing [and] a fierce blowing of ‘fish-horns’.
1902		L.A. Herald 2 May 🌐 Then another blew a blast from a fish horn in his ear [...] he joined in the fun, showered back the shimmering confetti, and blew his own fish horn.
1909		Wicklow News-Letter 23 Jan. 9/3: [V]illage boys armed with terrible noise-making instruments ranging from ‘fish-horns’ to ‘horse fiddles’.

2. (US, chiefly black) a saxophone.

1934		Charleston (WV) Daily Mail 31 July 6/8: Musicans have slang terms for every instrument [...] Fish horn – soprano saxophone.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1996		Muskrat Ramblers Muskrat Ramblers Vol. III [album sleeve notes] Frank DeFranco on clarinet and fishhorn.

1. (Anglo-Irish) the Irish Sea; thus over the fish-pond, England.

1821

‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 136: There is a sort of friendship which is perhaps never known over the fish-pond.

2. see pond, the n. (1)

(drugs) crack cocaine.

1989		(con. 1982–6) T. Williams Cocaine Kids (1990) 41: The kids out here don’t know a flake from a fish – if you asked them what fishscale is, they wouldn’t know. [Fishscale is high-grade cocaine powder with few rock-like chunks].
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 213: They say they’re in a band. Told me they wanted fish-scales. It took me a minute to figure out that meant crack.
2008		(con. 1983) ‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 174: ‘Sylvia's been playing us. All those records we sell, we haven’t seen a dime. And for what? Rented cars? Fish scales? All the pussy we can hit?’ .
2013		J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 94: Never mind the Mexican tar and fishscales, as old-time crackheads referred to their brain-crusher of choice.

see frogskin n.¹ (1)

a highly exaggerated or wholly fabricated anecdote.

1830

J.B. Skillman N.Y. Police Reports 24: Job says he met a stranger who was so kind as to give him $50. This was considered a kind of fish story.

(orig. US) a newspaper.

[1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Mar. 8/4: As a rule the Echo is good — if only to wrap candles in].
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 22/2: We understand that the dirty cur who runs the fried fish wrapper over the way objects to our name being placed on the hospital committee of this district, and he has also sobered up long enough […] to empty on our devoted head a small quantity of that slime with which his dirty, bloated, whisky-preserved carcase is filled.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Mar. 1/1: The dapper Dean was shocked at the Rhodes-scholar letters in the morning meat-wrap.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Sept. 28/1: Dear brothers, in conferring the editorship of this, our valuable meat-wrapper, upon you, we have only one request to make, i.e., that you keep it like Cæsar’s wife, beyond reproach.
2003		Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 Of course, I am speaking with me dick in me hand or with me something in me something, as they say in those fancy barramundi wrappers they print stuff in, down Mexico way. [Ibid.] Sept. [Internet] It wasn’t until reading the fish-wrappers in recent weeks that I recalled our encounter.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 21: ‘Go to the fish wrappers — ’ ‘The what?’ ‘Newspapers.’.
2013		Baltimore Sun (MD) 11 Sept. E5/2: Are you somking some wacky medical shit all rolled up in sheets of asswipe fishwrap you poop your writing onto?’.

see can a duck swim? under duck n.¹

see under die v.

see can a duck swim? under duck n.¹

see under drink v.

(UK society) anyone considered socially unacceptable.

2003

posting at www.holidaysuncovered.co.uk 🌐 Afandou [...] is lively without being over the top, and the ‘fish and chip mob’ tend to stay away in favour of Falaraki, a few miles up the coast.

see give someone the fish-eye under fish-eye n.¹

(Aus.) mind your own business.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

see under tit n.²

see can a duck swim? under duck n.¹