A fish is a cold-blooded animal that lives in water, breathes through gills, and usually has fins and scales. People also use “fish” as a verb to mean catching fish for food or sport.
It comes from Old English “fisc,” from an ancient Germanic and Indo-European root that has stayed very stable across languages. The word has always referred to water-dwelling creatures of this type.
“Fish” is both singular and plural—one fish, many fish—showing how English sometimes refuses to add an “-s.” The word swims into lots of idioms: “a big fish,” “fishy,” and “fish out of water,” turning an ordinary animal into a whole toolbox of metaphors.
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