Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A woman who sells fish.
- n. A woman regarded as coarse and shrewishly abusive.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A woman who sells fish.
Wiktionary
- n. A woman who sells or works with fish. (The female form of fishmonger.)
- n. pejorative A vulgar, abusive or nagging woman with a loud, unpleasant voice.
- n. Geordie, pejorative Term of abuse, usually directed at women, implying lack of personal hygiene.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A fishwoman.
- n. A woman who abusively scolds other people, often using coarse or vulgar language.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who sells fish
Etymologies
- Wife in the now-obsolete meaning woman (see also midwife). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Well, if you`d cared to type "fishwife" into the "Search Blog" box above, you`d have come up with this post all about them.”
“If you don't validate me utterly you are a fishwife!" is not the response of a man who thinks with the head on his shoulders.”
TOC: The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF edited by Mike Ashley
“We are living, apparently, at the mercy of people with the manners of a chimpanzee and the tongue of a Sicilian fishwife.”
The Huffington Post: David Tereshchuk: Cyber Threats -- and Remedies -- Get Overdue Airing
“I had too many as it was, and it made me feel like a fishwife.”
“For a moment she dropped the careful masque of the unruffled first mistress and looked like an irritated fishwife.”
“A benefit-scrounging layabout fishwife with a mouth on her like the Blackwall Tunnel and Max Clifford on speed-dial?”
Policeman killed - NO STORY. Woman slapped - BIG STORY. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG
“The 230 included a university philosopher, several beauticians and hairdressers, a dentist, a fishwife, a pharmacologist, a wet nurse and a school teacher, who had been denounced by one of her own pupils.”
“That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound.”
The Guardian: Russell Brand on Amy Winehouse: 'We have lost a beautiful, talented woman'
“Yes | No | Report from fishwife wrote 3 days 3 hours ago”
“Mizolwat - A dirty Wrist like you sick me up? that's a laurel - I knew your kink at fishwife gleam - dirty Wrist says I to myself.”
Fictionaut: The Sea at Sea (or Why is There a Question Instead of Not a Question)
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fishwife’.
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Wives
alewife, fishwife, midwife, kalewife, goodwife, housewife, oldwife, old wives' tale, wife, wives, husband and wife, man and wife and 16 more...
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LWC's Words
spork, heteroskedasticity, kurtosis, eigenspace, smithian, skewness, montanan, whoremonger, mellifluous, fishwife, papist, romanist and 142 more...
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ShuckFinn's Words
abecedarian, conflate, mondegreen, whit, truculent, downright, pugnacious, effluvium, canker, inveigle, obfuscate, melancholy and 227 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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vorpal's Words
parabiosis, penumbra, defenestrate, portmanteau, sturm und drang, perspicacious, quixotic, copacetic, obfuscate, inveigle, shadenfreude, cloister and 349 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Noah's Park
Hello, and Welcome™! Come and visit our most diverse land of our Animalesque™ adventures. Here at Noah's Park™ we have Virtually All You'd Ever Want To See™. An experience that is related to ani...
sheep's eyes, doe-eyed, cat-eyed, bug-eyed, cat's paw, black swan, leapfrog, menagerie, cold turkey, card shark, snail's pace, bull's eye and 362 more...
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The Amulet of Samarkand
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand.
flunky, provenance, pare, rabbit in a covert, short shrift, bunker, trainers, tatty, lob, injunction, doss, bluster and 193 more...
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Archaic Occupations
Some of these professions still exist today but the word for them has changed; some (mason or boatswain, for example), are still in use but are included for their rich historical associations. Som...
yeoman, summoner, chandler, ostler, carter, chapman, slaver, mason, cordwainer, cooper, glazier, dyer and 187 more...
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Oofy
States of being
seeress, honey bucket, donkeyman, poopyhead, halfwit, vixenish, galoot, hoity toity, shitkicker, miserabilist, wanker, clueless and 261 more...
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Animalia Wordia
Words or short phrases with animal names in them. Since I already have a dedicated list for 'monkey' words I shall leave them out of this one for the moment.
paper tiger, pigeon-hearted, lion-hearted, sacred cow, chicken heart, fraidy cat, scaredy-cat, snake oil, can of worms, snake pit, rat's nest, stool pigeon and 114 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 317 more...
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F is for Flea Circus
My F Words
fire engine red, fanboy, fancy pants, fanzine, feeling fist, femme fatale, fiasco, fiddle faddle, fiddlesticks, filibuster, flannel, flea circus and 41 more...
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some words I like
lorem ipsum, amble, conjunctiva, ribaldry, pedestrian, floret, frith, philately, mercy, transpierced, wrist, codicil and 40 more...
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my kith & kin
;)
villain, wanker, fool, tosser, shyster, scoundrel, ratbag, rascal, spazz, wastrel, phony, moron and 41 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fishwife.
yarb I imagine a sort of proletarian mermaid. Oct 18, 2007