Word for the day: fish

fish 1 |fɪʃ|             *pescado (in Spanish)


 

DEFINITION

noun ( pl. same or fishes )
1 a limbless cold-blooded vertebrate animal with gills and fins living wholly in water: the huge lakes are now devoid of fish.• [ mass noun ] the flesh of fish as food.• (the Fish or Fishes) the zodiacal sign or constellation Pisces.• used in names of invertebrate animals living wholly in water, e.g. cuttlefish, shellfish, jellyfish.• informal a torpedo.

2 [ with adj. ] Brit. informal a person who is strange in a specified way: he is generally thought to be a bit of a cold fish.

ORIGIN Old English fisc (as a noun denoting any animal living exclusively in water), fiscian(verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch vis, vissen and German Fisch, fischen . Usage: The normal plural of fish is fish ( a shoal of fish ; he caught two huge fish ). The older form fishes is still used, when referring to different kinds of fish ( freshwater fishes of the British Isles).

fish 2 |fɪʃ|             *lámina (in Spanish)

DEFINITION

noun
a flat plate that is fixed on a beam or across a joint in order to give additional strength.• a long, slightly curved piece of wood that is lashed to a ship's damaged mast or spar as a temporary repair.

ORIGIN 
Early 16th cent.: probably from French fiche, from ficher ‘to fix’, based on Latinfigere .

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