fishmonger

WOTD - 3 October 2010    

English

A fishmonger (person who sells fish) at work

Etymology

fish +‎ monger

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ˈfɪʃˌmʌŋɡ.ə(ɹ)/, SAMPA: /"fIS%mVNg.@(r)/

Noun

fishmonger (plural fishmongers)

1. (UK) A person who sells fish.
2. (UK, rare) A fishmonger's, a fishmonger's shop: a shop that sells fish.
   • 1931, Grace Hegger Lewis, Half a Loaf,^[1] H. Liveright (publisher), 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 (1995), ISBN 9780671527938, 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 9781921259890, 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. (archaic) A pimp.

   "Excellent well; you are a fishmonger." - William Shakespeare, said by Hamlet to Polonius. (Act 2, Scene 2)

Translations

person who sells fish

Armenian: ձկնավաճառ (hy) (jknavačar) Basque: arrain-saltzaile (eu) Catalan: peixater Chinese: Mandarin: 魚商 (zh), 鱼商 (zh) (yúshāng) Danish: fiskehandler (da) c., fiskemand (da) c. Dutch: vishandelaar (nl) m. Estonian: kalakaupmees (et) Finnish: kalakauppias (fi) French: poissonnier (fr) m. German: Fischhändler (de)

Greek: ιχθυοπώλης (el) (ichthyopólis) m. Italian: pescivendolo (it) m. Ladino: Latin: balukchí m. Norwegian: Bokmål: fiskehandler (no) m. Nynorsk: fiskehandlar (nn) m. Persian: ماهی‌فروش (fa) Russian: рыботорговец (ru) Spanish: pescadero (es) m., pescadera (es) f. Turkish: balıkçı (tr)

fishmonger's — see fishmonger's

archaic: a pimp

Italian: magnaccia (it), pappone (it), ruffiano (it), lenone (it), protettore (it) Norwegian: hallik (no) m.

Romanian: pește (ro) m.