Metal bolts or fasteners used in shipbuilding and boat construction to attach wooden planks together.
Compound of 'fish' (from Old English 'fisc') and 'bolt' (from Old Norse 'bolti', meaning pin or latch). In nautical terminology, 'fish' refers to a wooden or metal reinforcing plate, not the aquatic animal.
Shipwrights used the term 'fish' for reinforcing plates because they resembled the shape and flexibility of actual fish — the curved plates would bend and adapt to a ship's frame just like a fish adapts to water.
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