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fishmonger

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 3 October 2010
A fishmonger (person who sells fish) at work

Etymology

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From Middle English fisshemonger; equivalent to fish ‎ monger.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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fishmonger (plural fishmongers)

  1. (British) A person who sells fish.
    Synonyms: fishman, (formal, rare) ichthyopolist
    • 1850, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Plato; or, The Philosopher”, in Representative Men: Seven Lectures, Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson and Company, […], →OCLC, page 58:
      If he made transcendental distinctions, he fortified himself by drawing all his illustrations from sources disdained by orators and polite conversers; from mares and puppies; from pitchers and soup-ladles; from cooks and criers; the shops of potters, horse-doctors, butchers, and fishmongers.
  2. (British, rare) A shop that sells fish; a fishmonger's shop, a fishmonger's.
    • 1931, Grace Hegger Lewis, Half a Loaf‎[1], H. Liveright, page 225:
      And Susan, sure of this inevitable answer, would ask Cook to pop into the fishmonger for a nice bit of salmon, […]
    • 1990, Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Light Years, Simon and Schuster, published 1995, →ISBN, page 294:
      A nice woman at the fishmonger in Earl’s Court Road—she had to walk miles to find a fish shop—told her how to cook the fillets of plaice she bought.
    • 2007, Leslie Ann Bosher, To the Manor Drawn, Murdoch Books, →ISBN, page 157:
      Cornish peppered mackerel, smoked haddock, Scottish herring and pearl-white skate wings are all laid on a bed of crushed ice at the fishmonger.
  3. (figurative, archaic) A pimp.

Hyponyms

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Translations

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