Fishwife
noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A woman who sells or works with fish; a female fishmonger. archaic
"[S]he was angry with herself; and, for that, sang the more loudly the most wicked and risqué of her slang songs, that gave the morals of a Messalina in the language of a fish-wife, and yet had an inalienable, mischievous, contagious, dauntless French grace in it withal."
- 2 a female who sells fish wordnet
- 3 A vulgar, abusive or nagging woman with a loud, unpleasant voice. derogatory
- 4 A person, especially a woman, with poor personal hygiene. Geordie, derogatory
- 5 The wife of a homosexual man. slang
Example
More examples"[S]he was angry with herself; and, for that, sang the more loudly the most wicked and risqué of her slang songs, that gave the morals of a Messalina in the language of a fish-wife, and yet had an inalienable, mischievous, contagious, dauntless French grace in it withal."
Etymology
From Middle English fysshewyfe; equivalent to fish + wife (“(obsolete) woman”) (see also midwife).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.