a. [f. as prec. + -Y1.]
1. Abounding in fish. Now poet. or humorous.
1552. Huloet, Fishye, or full of fishe … piscosus, pisculentus.
1632. J. Lee, Short Surv., 16. Dalia, is a mountainous countrey in most places; hath many fishie rivers and lakes, and pasture for cattell in no small abundance.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IV. 499.
| Bait the barb’d steel, and from the fishy flood | |
| Appease th’ afflictive fierce desire of food. |
1833. Blackw. Mag., XXXIII. May, 853. On the banks of that fishy loch we stood, eyeing the sunshine beautifully warming the breezy dark moss-water.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, I. IX. 265.
| As when two winds upturn the fishy deep,— | |
| The north wind and the west, that suddenly | |
| Blow from the Thracian coast. |
2. Resembling a fish or something belonging to a fish; fish-like.
1611. Bible, 1 Sam. v. 4. The head of Dagon, and both the palmes of his hands were cut off vpon the threshold, only the stump [marg. fishy part] of Dagon was left to him.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., V. xix. 260. Monster [the Mermaids], with womans head above, and fishy extremity below.
1703. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1721), Add. 2. They were two Syrens, which twining their fishy Tails together, made a Seat, on which was placed sitting a naked Woman, her Arms and the Syrens on each side mutually entwined.
1863. N. Macleod, Reminiscences of a Highland Parish, in Good Words, IV. 505/2. Poor Lachlan had become so accustomed to this kind of fishy existence that he attached no more value to clothes than a merman does.
1868. Helps, Realmah, iii. (1876), 39. I know nothing of these fishy, half-under-water people.
Comb.
1825. J. Neal, Brother Jonathan, II. 439. Getting over the ground, at a prodigious rate, upon a pair of droll, fat, fishy-looking, short, shapeless legs.
b. Of the eye: Dull, vacant of expression. Also in comb. fishy-eyed adj.
1836. T. E. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, III. 23. The door was opened by a tall, fishy-eyed maid, with flaxen hair, and a parchment skin, doubtfully displayed by the light of a tallow candle.
1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, xv. (1879), 136. Whatever the subjects of the lectures were (and variety was an object in the selection) there were the same vacant faces, looking with the same fishy stare into the lecturer’s countenance.
1862. Sala, Seven Sons, I. vi. 128. He had a civil word to say, too, for the Cemetery Chaplain, a pallid young man with a fishy eye, one of a race of hapless curates who had desperately clutched at the large salary attached to a charnel-house chaplaincy.
1877. A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, xi. 291. The Sheykh of the Cataract—a flat-faced, fishy-eyed old Nubian, with his head tied up in a dingy yellow silk handkerchief—sat apart in solitary granduer at the stern, smoking a long chibouque.
3. Of odour, taste, etc.: Characteristic of or proceeding from fish.
1616. Chapman, Musæus, 382.
| And yet I know, it is enough for thee | |
| To suffer for my love the fishy savours | |
| The working sea breaths. |
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 166.
| So entertaind those odorous sweets the Fiend | |
| Who came thir bane, though with them better pleas’d | |
| Then Asmodeus with the fishie fume. |
1791. Cowper, Odyss., IV. 543.
| But she a potent remedy devised | |
| Herself to save us, who the nostrils soothed | |
| Of each with pure ambrosia thither brought | |
| Odorous, Which the fishy scent subdued. |
1837. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., II. 211. The meat contained in the claws [of a crab] is white, and of an exquisite flavour, being an example of a pure fishy taste without the slightest degree of rankness, and so wholesome that it rarely disagrees with the weakest stomachs.
4. Having the savor, smell, or taint of fish.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, § 292. Clawe nat the skyn with fyshye fyngers.
1667. H. Stubbs, in Phil. Trans., II. 501. A Bird … called a Pellican, but a kind of Cormorant, that is of taste Fishy.
1791. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 8 Aug. Lyme, however, brought me to myself; for the part by the sea, where we fixed our abode, was so dirty and fishy that I rejoiced when we left it.
1837. Hawthorne, Twice-told T. (1851), II. vi. 90. The very air was fishy, being perfumed with dead sculpins, hardheads and dogfish strewn plentifully on the beach.
5. Consisting of fish; produced from fish.
1698. Dampier, Voy., II. I. ii. 28. I have been told that Soy is made partly with a fishy composition, and it seems most likely by the taste.
1725. Pope, Odyss., V. 64.
| So watery fowl, that seek their fishy food, | |
| With wings expanded o’er the foaming flood. |
1879. Chr. Rossetti, Seek & F., 279. In connexion with the fishy family, though produced by a member of a far lower group, we find pearls twice employed by our Lord as an emblem of heavenly treasures.
1884. Illust. Lond. News, 13 Dec., 571/3. I have italicised the line about the wines for the reason that I find that the guests at the Murray Hill Hotel dinner washed down their ‘fishy’ repast with Latour Blanche, Amontillado sherry, Niersteiner, Château Laflitte, Cordon Rouge, and Ichthyophagous punch.
6. colloq. or slang. a. (? With the notion ‘slippery as a fish,’ or perh. with allusion to meat with a ‘fishy’ taste.) Of dubious quality, unreliable, questionable, ‘shady.’ b. Having ‘fishy’ eyes (see 2 b); hence, languid or ‘seedy,’ esp. as the result of a debauch.
1844. Disraeli, Coningsby, I. ix. ‘I thought it was all up. Didn’t you, Henry Sydney?’ ‘The most fishy thing I ever saw,’ said Henry Sydney.
1865. J. C. Wilcocks, Sea Fisherman (1875), 117–8. There he lay, lead-coloured in hue, ‘rather pale about the gills, and certainly doosed fishy about the eyes,’ staring as the whole fraternity of Congers has been remarked to stare from time immemorial.
1880. J. Payn, Confid. Agent, III. 151. It is either Monteur or Montagne—Langton’s French is very fishy.
1882. Black, Shandon Bells, xi. I always heard he was fishy about money matters—and other matters, too.
1882. The American, V. Nov., 83/2. Altogether, the story is too fishy.
