adj. (common).—Effete, dubious, or seedy (of persons); unsound, or equivocal (of things). Also FISHINESS = UNSOUNDNESS.
1858. C. W. SHIRLEY BROOKS, The Gordian Knot, p. 14. Highly FISHY they were. Something about breach of trust, and the embezzling his brother’s money—a man in India.
1859. Punch, vol. XXXVI., p. 82. The affair is decidedly FISHY. However, somebody must have the place, and so our friend Sam Warren … takes the mastership, resigning his seat.
1868. Orchestra, 29 Feb., p. 365. When he commented on the words in the libel of Greek derivation, he professed to have forgotten all he ever learnt at school, said that ichthyophagous meant FISHY, a word that thoroughly described the plaintiff’s case.
1870. London Figaro, 31 Oct. Captain Spratt is the right man in the right place, though his appointment to such a post is certainly, on the face of it, FISHY.
1884. T. A. GUTHRIE (‘F. Anstey’), The Giant’s Robe, ch. xxii. There’s something FISHY about it all, and I mean to get at it.
1890. St. James’s Gazette, 9 April, p. 3, col. 1. Unfortunately the Bill is FISHY; and there are ‘very awkward and stiff considerations about it.’
