Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Fishy   Listen
adjective
Fishy  adj.  
1.
Consisting of fish; fishlike; having the qualities or taste of fish; abounding in fish.
2.
Extravagant, like some stories about catching fish; improbable; also, rank or foul. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Fishy" Quotes from Famous Books



... gathered as many other sticks as made a fire large enough to yield them some relief from the inclemency of the weather. They caught some fowls with springes made of an old horsehair wig, which were very tough and of a fishy taste, but after three or four days, they became acquainted with the springes and were never afterwards to be taken by that means. Their next resource for food was an animal which burrowed in the ground like our rabbits, but the flesh of these proving unwholesome, threw them into such dangerous ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... understood the solitary letters, and he rushed, with a new accession of fury, to the adjoining cage, where another disdainful hand picked up the cheque and turned it over, with an air of saying, "Fishy, this!" ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... adjusted her spectacles, lifted the dripping head into her lap, wiped the face of it with her apron, and gazed into its fishy eyes with tender curiosity. "John," said she, thoughtfully, ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... sure, I forgot that; well, it is two hours by train to Athenbury, which is a dirty place, as all seaports are—full of fishy and sailory smells, though I've never heard that such smells are bad for the health; at least the Sanitary Commissioners say that if all the filth were cleaned away the effluvia would be less offensive, and— and—. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... life of ripe womanhood. Moreover, there was another reason why he recoiled from her. The smells of the markets distressed him; on finishing his duties of an evening he would have liked to escape from the fishy odour amidst which his days were spent; but, alas! beautiful though La Normande was, this odour seemed to adhere to her silky skin. She had tried every sort of aromatic oil, and bathed freely; but as soon as the freshening influence of the bath was over her blood ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most distressing {45}—who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under each man's ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... was singularly, repellently intelligent. It fixed itself upon me, as I approached, with eager questioning which melted into ingratiating politeness. Instinct warned the fellow that I was the person he awaited. At the same moment, instinct was busily whispering to me that there was something fishy about him, despite the alleged letter. He did not look the type of man Fenton would recommend. And though his face was of an unwholesome olive tint, and he wore a tarbush, and a galabeah as long as a dressing-gown, under his short ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... her note-book. "A fresh fish," she wrote, "does not smell fishy and its eyes are bright and its gills red. A tender chicken or turkey has a springy breast bone. If you push it down with your finger, it springs back. A leg of lamb has to have the tough, outer parchment-like skin taken off with a sharp knife. Some of ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... each clutching a paper which presently it seemed they might devour, goat-like, in sheer hunger. The stamp of cruel want convulsed each hopeless face, and crowsfeet lines of despair lay as a delta beneath each fishy eye. About us in all directions towered huge monuments of apoplectic wealth—teeming hives, draining the honey from each bee, tearing from thousands their best years, their finest endeavors, their very hearts' blood—all to swell the wealth of a bloated few! And we, the drones, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... clerk's fishy eye glistened. "You can depend upon me," he answered, with an acquiescent nod. I judged that he did not often get the chance of earning some eighty ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... his cap when he heard Walters coming, grinned painfully, pulling his straggly red and white beard nervously. The strain was beginning to tell on his iron nerves. He removed the cap, and with a few muttered words went back to the game, but there was a dangerous gleam in his fishy blue eyes, and the grizzled tufts of red hair above his eyes lowered threateningly. A man who is getting swamped in a game of checkers is not in a mood to bear pleasantly any remarks ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... came in they were hailed with enthusiasm by the landlord and the Besotted Wretch, while the semi-drunk workman regarded them with fishy eyes and ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... were twenty feet high. The spray rose eighty feet at the new pier. Some wood has come ashore, and the roadway seems carried away. There is something fishy at the far end where the cross wall is building; but till we are able to get ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... watermelons in long rows; white and yellow onions are heaped in sacks. The sweet musk of cantaloupes is the scent that overbreathes all others. Then, down nearer to the waterfront, comes the strong, damp fishy whiff of oysters. To stroll among these gleaming piles of victuals, to watch the various colours where the lamps pour a pale silver and yellow on cairns and pyramids of vegetables, is to gather a lusty appetite and attack ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... away. Think I saw th' fellow running as I came by. Yelled at him, but he could run some. Take 'im away. Something fishy about this. I'll call on my friend Webb in th' morning. There might be something ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... the river Kalama, which is supposed to be the Churmut, 60 days after their departure from the Indus, they at length obtained from the natives some sheep; but the flesh of it, as well as the fowls which they obtained, had a very fishy taste—the sheep, fowls, and inhabitants, all feeding on fish, there being no herbage or trees of any kind, except a few palm-trees. On the next day, having doubled a cape, they anchored in a harbour called Mosarna, where they found a pilot, who undertook to conduct the fleet to ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... had she been so minded, she could have shaken hands with her opposite neighbour. There was a richly carved mantel-piece, with a sea-coal fire burning in it, for though it was May, the sea winds blew cold, and there was a fishy odour about the town, such as it was well to counteract. The floor was of slippery polished oak, the walls hung with leather, gilded in some places and depending from cornices, whose ornaments proved to an initiated eye, that this had once been the refectory ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... indeed kept guard: but a mighty[290] Flight, the companion of chill Fear, seized upon the Greeks; and all the chiefs were afflicted with intolerable grief. And as two winds, the north and south, which both blow from Thrace,[291] rouse the fishy deep, coming suddenly [upon it]; but the black billows are elevated together; and they dash much sea-weed out of the ocean; so was the mind of the Greeks ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... been for some months established in this place, turning the main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed and thin-muscled,—you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not quite ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... have declined paying it, even with the loss of the legacy itself; and Hugh was dismayed at the impossibility of interesting them in anything. He tried telling them stories even, without success. They stared at him, it is true; but whether there was more speculation in the open mouths, or in the fishy, overfed eyes, he found it impossible to determine. He could not help feeling the riddle of Providence in regard to the birth of these, much harder to read than that involved in the case of some of the little ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... sea-egg, one of those prickly fellows - sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; the shell is of a lovely purple, and when opened, there are rays of yellow adhering to the inside; these I eat, but they are very fishy. ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Dr. Andrew Bell. We knew him. Was he dull? Is a wooden spoon dull? Fishy were his eyes; torpedinous was his manner; and his main idea, out of two which he really had, related to the moon—from which you infer, perhaps, that he was lunatic. By no means. It was no craze, under the influence of the moon, which possessed ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... light, and in the instant stunning report of the pistol shot, Barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be a great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons. Then the darkness, very thick ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... blunt manner was an affectation, she was quick to discern. While he talked to her, he looked at her knowingly with his light fishy eyes, and by his look and his tone he seemed to establish an immediate intimacy between them—as if he and she were speaking a language which was foreign to the rest of the table. He appeared to be kind, she thought, and on his side he was thinking ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... Fanny too. They got excited, and bet higher; the croupiers pelted them with golden coins, and they began to pant and flush, and their eyes to gleam. The old gamblers' eyes seem to have lost this power—they have grown fishy; but the eyes of these female novices were a sight. Fanny's, being light gray, gleamed like a panther's whose prey is within leap. Zoe's dark orbs could not resemble any wild beast's; but they glowed with unholy fire; and, indeed, all down ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... "Pooh! pooh!" But finally they jealous grew, And sounded loud recalls; But vainly. So these fishy males Declared they too would clothe their tails In ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... the same time holding it so that it might lengthen out inimitably. Then he leaned it over the eye of the glass, in the direction of the pillar besieged by the billows, and lo! with one cut, even at that distance, he divided the fishy monster, and with another severed the chains that had fettered Noorna; and she arose and smiled blissfully to the sky, and stood upright, and signalled him to lay the point of the blade on the pillar. When he had done this, knowing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the truth, at that," she announced suddenly, eyes coldly unprepossessed. "You sound fishy as all-hell, and God knows you're the sickest-looking cop I ever laid eyes on; but there are less unlikely things than that a second-story man should try this route for his getaway.... Well!" she demanded urgently—"what're you standing there ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... the Sea, mistress of waters, Queen of a hundred caves, arouse the scaly flocks, urge on the fishy-crowds forth from their hiding places, forth from the muddy shrine, forth from the net-hauling, to the nets of a hundred fishers! Take now thy beauteous shield, shake the golden water, with which thou frightenest the fish, and direct them toward the net ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... "And that fair town, whose produce is the rose, The rose which gives it name in Grecian speech: That, too, which fishy marshes round enclose, And Po's two currents threat with double breach; Whose townsmen loath the lazy calm's repose, And pray that stormy waves may lash the beach. I pass, mid towns and towers, a countless store, Argenta, Lugo, and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... a black-winged pelican; the pectoral muscles and the extremities of which proved good eating; but the inside and the fat were of a nauseously fishy taste. Charley shot a bustard, and John a black ibis. The smoke of the Black-fellows' fires was seen to the southward. The fresh grass of recent burnings extended over all the plains, and even near our waterle encampment, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... my poor Jim," said I. "She's a gallant little woman and a loyal wife: and I thought her splendid. My story was as fishy as the devil. I'll never think the less of either her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Inn dated from the Nursery; consequently I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens

... it might injure the sale of the really excellent porgy oil which is the product of their sole manufacturing interest. This reluctance to advertise the skeleton in their closet, superadded to the slowness of these obtuse, fishy, matter-of-fact people to recognize the transcendent importance of the case, must be accepted as explanation of the fact that John Newbegin's spirit has been on earth between three and four months, and yet the singular circumstance is not known ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... stated, owed his fishy title to the fact that he once possessed a Wealthy Relative of the name of Haddon. With far-sighted reversionary intent his mother, a Mrs. Berners nee Seymour Stukeley, had ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... cover the tracks of a secret commission, and had handled the matter through solicitors who did not know the state of his affairs! But why Pillin's solicitors? With this sale just going through, it must look deuced fishy to them too. Was it all a mare's nest, after all? In such circumstances he himself would have taken the matter to a London firm who knew nothing of anybody. Puzzled, therefore, and rather disheartened, feeling too that touch of liver which was wont to follow ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... train to Paris was due. She debated whether or not she should tell the ticket agent of her trouble and see if he could pass her back to Paris, but his appearance was so forbidding and his eyes so fishy that she could hardly make up her mind even to ask the time for the train. She made out from a bulletin that it was not due until ten at night. That would land her in Paris at midnight. In the meantime, she must ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... so Ben Tripper had named his bawley, after his favourite sister—was lying on the mud just above Leigh. A fishy smell pervaded the air, for close by were the boiling-sheds, with their vast heaps of white cockle-shells. These were dug by the cocklers either from the sand at the end of the Canvey Island or on the Maplin Sands somewhere ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... put her away when he wedded Miss Watts," said Sir George, coolly, "I think he did it from interest and selfish calculation, not because he ceased to love her in his bloodless, fishy fashion. And now that Lady Johnson has fled to Canada, Sir John makes no pretence of hiding his amours in the society which he haunts; nor does that society take umbrage at the notorious relationship so impudently renewed. We're a ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... call their own; they dropped from the clouds, as it were, one rainy day, without a friend in the world, plump down into the Charterhouse. There they were well supplied with money, and spent their holidays with a person at Brighton, who wasn't even supposed to be their lawful guardian. Looks fishy, doesn't it? Their names are Cyril and Guy Waring—and that's all they know of themselves. They were educated like gentlemen till they were twenty-one years old; and then they were turned loose upon ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... woeful decay, and for years of whose number there is no record Tenby existed as a poor fishing-village and mourned its departed glories. That it would ever again be a place of interest to anybody but people of fishy pursuits was an idea Tenby did not entertain concerning itself; but, lo! in the present century there arose a custom among genteel folk of going down to the sea in bathing-machines. It was discovered that Tenby ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... interested him the most was a dudish young man, dressed in the extreme of fashion, carrying a heavy cane, and wearing eyeglasses. He had high cheek bones, fishy gray eyes, fine teeth, and a simpering smile. Tom judged he was a couple of years older than himself, and became interested in him because of his amusing efforts to charm the ladies around him. The vulgar expression would be that he was trying to "mash" them. The word is not a good one, ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... large, fishy eyes, with which he looked me up and down. For such a length of time he remained thus regarding me in silence that a massive gentleman sitting near, who had overheard, took it upon himself to reply in the affirmative, adding that from what he knew of Butterworth we would all of us ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... followed the low-flying sea-parrots. In a half conscious way she noticed that many of them came toward the crest of the hill and disappeared. Sea-parrots were not as fishy tasting as gulls, as she had heard Kayak Bill say. If only they had some way of killing these birds perhaps the broth and the flesh might bring ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... one's feet, the colours—creamy white with grey and brown and purple spots, and blotches and scribblings—blending perfectly with their environment. The eggs, by the way, are a great delicacy, sweet, nutty, and absolutely devoid of fishy flavour. When the downy young are hatched they, too, are almost invisible. They cunningly lie motionless, though within a few inches of your hand, and remain perfectly passive when lifted. Snoodling beside lumps of coral or ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... houses to long heavy poles, you will have a general but tolerably accurate idea of a Kamchadal settlement of the better class. They differ somewhat in respect to their size and their churches; but the grey log houses, conical balagans drying fish, wolfish dogs, canoes, sledges, and fishy odours are ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... the rascal emits such a fishy odour that I have no doubt of his being a fisherman; but we must inquire a little more closely into this queer story about the finding of the ring. Come, we'll take him before ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... lads had climbed up out of his sight, and then he went and sat down on a block of granite, and began to rasp his nose on both sides with his rough, fishy finger, as if engaged in sharpening the edge of a feature which was sharp enough as it was; and as he rasped, he looked straight before him at the great rugged cliff. But he was not thinking of it in ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... in the air, he submitted to the fishy stare of the great eyes under the sheathing of glass. But soon he started to squirm, and his violent contortions brought a rush of blood to his head, making him quite dizzy. It was while he was in that state that things ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... once upon a time lived upon raw rats, I was not very particular; and even should I not obtain any eggs, I might find some young birds, which, though perhaps fishy in taste, would enable me to support existence. I therefore rowed towards the rock which I saw was of considerable extent, although one part only on which the beacon was placed rose a ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... whole page Al and besides they's a few sentences that sounds O. K. and I suppose he put them in for a blind but you can't get away from them x marks Al and I will write down a couple other sentences and I bet you will agree that they's something fishy about them and here is the sentences ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner

... Everybody knows how greatly the quality of pork depends upon the manner in which the pig has been fed, and this applies to the fat as well as other parts of the animal. Some time ago I had some pork submitted to me for the expression of opinion upon it, which had a decided fishy flavor, both in taste and smell. This flavor was present in every part, fat and lean, and it is obvious that lard prepared from that fat would not be fit for use in pharmacy. The pig had been prescribed a fish diet. Barley meal would, no doubt, have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... ain't the first time I've seen him there neither," Jarvis had remarked; "me and Saunders have noticed him ever so many times, dropping in promiscuous like while Mrs. G. was there, Fishy, to say the ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... the scent of flowers is by enfleurage, which takes advantage of the tendency of fats to absorb odors. You know how butter set beside fish in the ice box will get a fishy flavor. In enfleurage moist air is carried up a tower passing alternately over trays of fresh flowers, say violets, and over glass plates covered with a thin layer of lard. The perfumed lard may then be used as a pomade or the perfume may be ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... He was sitting, a wooden figure, in front of his desk where Steering had thrashed him down. His temples were still purplish, but the crazy light was no longer in his eyes. They were dull and fishy. Steering had gone to the office door, then the bank door had clanked to behind him before Madeira moved. He began working his fingers then, watching them questioningly, stupidly. They felt stiff and numb. Suddenly he leaned forward exhausted. His head rolled on the desk. ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... where Sprawley stood, and climbing out on the ice they seemed to be welcoming him, hopping and sliding about, and pulling at his hair and claws. Now that Teddy saw them quite close they were uglier than ever, with goggle eyes, and rough, fishy-looking skins. ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle

... mapping the outside of this dangerous and inhospitable archipelago. On December 20th he put in to what he afterwards called Christmas Sound, where large numbers of kelp geese were obtained, giving the crew what Cook describes as a dainty Christmas feast, though the flesh of these birds is as tough, fishy, and unpalatable as can well be imagined; on this occasion, however, the seamen seemed to have concurred in the verdict of their omnivorous commander, to whom nothing ever came amiss. Be it remembered, however, how long they had ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... "It sounds fishy to me, that's all," he said. "Didn't Heinrich say he went to a party last night? How do you know the party wasn't held out here, and that he just happened to run across your car and decided ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... overhead set a winterlike gloom across the countryside. To the constant sound of birdcalls Ross tramped heavily through small pools, beating a path through tangles of marsh grass. He stole eggs from nests, sucking his nourishment eagerly with no dislike for the fishy flavor, and drinking from ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... of course, mere theory, but it is supported by the well authenticated parallel case of the Nylghau—more properly Nile Ghaut—which derived its name from the singular fact that it was never seen by any human being in the neighborhood of the Ghauts of the Nile. Although the Nile has such a fishy reputation that stories from that source are generally taken cum grano salis, or profanely characterised (see Cicero) as "Nihil Tam incredible," the above statement in relation to the Nylghau will not be seriously disputed by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... calls you that way. You pick up more money—which is everything in these days—and you see the ships and yachts going to and fro, and so forth. But you can't breed ducks for table. Once they get nigh to tidal water, though it be but to the head of a creek, the flesh turns fishy, and you can't prevent it. We must set it down to Natur', I suppose. But ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... of one than I bargained for," said Aunt Dorothy. "But in their own rough way the men tried to be kind to me. The food we had was disgusting, the boat dreadfully fishy, oily, and dirty; there was not a possibility of being comfortable day or night. But I have nothing to grumble at. They took me back safe and sound to the beche-de-mer station at last, and there I ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... been on the watch then place sticks in the ground to mark the place where they may be found, and they are the next morning dug out in enormous quantities, and exported to various parts of Borneo and the adjacent islands. The eggs have a stale fishy flavour, are very sandy, and to my mind extremely nasty, although they are considered a great delicacy by the natives, who eat them raw ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... must have attracted his attention, for he looked at me again, and said, "What makes you look so jolly fishy, eh, youngster?" ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... the most illy fitted to survive. They are very conspicuous, very unwary, easy to find if alive, and easy to shoot. Never in my life have any shore birds except woodcock and snipe appealed to me as real game. They are too easy to kill, too trivial when killed, and some of them are too rank and fishy on the plate. As game for men I place them on a level with barnyard ducks or orchard turkeys. I would as soon be caught stealing a sheep as to be seen trying to shoot fishy yellow legs or little joke sandpipers for the purpose ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... breakwater. Just by chance, in the ballroom, Mr. King found himself seated by Mrs. Benson and a group of elderly ladies, who had the perfunctory air of liking the mild gayety of the place. To one of them Mr. King was presented, Mrs. Stimpson—a stout woman with a broad red face and fishy eyes, wearing an elaborate head-dress with purple flowers, and attired as if she were expecting to take a prize. Mrs. Stimpson was loftily condescending, and asked Mr. King if this was his first visit. She'd been coming here years and years; never ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Loves of the Poets, and that sort of thing, to clubs out in Chicago. To Flavia it is more necessary to be called clever than to breathe. I would give a good deal to know that glum Frenchman's diagnosis. He has been watching her out of those fishy eyes of his as a biologist ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... you like coffee with sand for dregs? A decided hint of salt in your tea? And a fishy taste in the very eggs? Then by all ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... three or four in one hole, which they dig in the downs as deep as those of rabbits, and the ground is so full of them, that one is liable almost at every step to sink into them up to the knees. They feed entirely on fish, yet their flesh has not that rank fishy taste which is so common in sea-fowl, but is extraordinarily well tasted. Penguin, the name of this bird, is not derived from the Latin pinguedo, fatness, as the Dutch author of this voyage would have it, and therefore spells ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... I not then right in saying that this source of wealth is prodigious?' asked Mr. Holt. 'But the abominable dams, and the barrier nets, and the Indians' spearing, have already lessened it one-fourth.' A relative comparing of experiences, with reference to fishy subjects, ensued between the squire and his guest; and both agreed that—quitting the major matter of the dams—an enforcement of 'close time,' from the 20th of August till May, would materially tend ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... be about 40 rods and 16 poles S., 27 degrees E. of the middle of Lake Okeechobee. This man's lot was under thirty-six feet of water, and, besides, had been preempted so long by the alligators and gars that his title looked fishy. ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... The whiskey is furnished by Vorse, I suspect, and is being served at Vorse's place. Your warrant is inspired by Vorse and others, isn't it? The two circumstances coming at the same moment, the free drunk and my arrest, look fishy to me. What do you think? I'm in charge of a property here representing a good deal of money and I should hate to be absent if the men took the idea into their heads to turn the camp upside down, especially if the idea was inspired by ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... have never seen anyone so supremely braced. We examined the scheme from every angle and there wasn't a flaw in it. The only difficulty was to hit on a plausible purchaser. Archie suggested me, but I couldn't see it. I said it would sound fishy. Eventually I had a brain wave, and suggested J. Bellingwood Brackett, the American millionaire. He lives in London, and you see his name in the papers everyday as having bought some painting or statue or something, so why shouldn't he buy Archie's "Coming of Summer?" And Archie said, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... garden-soil contains large quantities of carbonaceous matter; and, if we bury in such a soil a piece of tainted meat or a fishy duck, it will, in a short time, be deprived of its odor, because the charcoal in the ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... walrus: a distorted, shapeless mass of discoloured flesh, sparsely covered with coarse bristles. The one I saw measured about ten feet long, had quite that girth, and must have weighed over a ton. Walrus meat as a diet is less repulsive than seal, for it is not so fishy in flavour and has more the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... don't be such an ass. I don't know about Saunders—he's a fishy sort of customer—but I shall come out of all this with flying colours. The prosecution hasn't ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... Ipswich are—A steamboat will bring you for five shillings (a very pretty sail) from the Custom House to Ipswich, the Orwell steamer; going twice a week, and heard of directly in the fishy latitudes of London Bridge. Or, a railroad brings you for the same sum; if you will travel third class, which I sometimes do in fine weather. I should recommend that; the time being so short, so certain: and no eating and ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... Highford is an odious cat, and I don't believe a word about Mr. Markrute and the getting Lord Tancred into his power. That is only to make a salve for herself. The Duke would never have Mr. Markrute here if there was anything fishy about him. Why, ducky, you know it is the only house left in England, almost, where they have ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... Considerable trouble has been experienced in Australian butter exported to Europe in which a fishy flavor developed. It was noted that the production of this defect seemed to be dependent upon the storage temperature at which the butter was kept. When the butter was refrigerated at 15 deg. F. no further difficulty was experienced. It is claimed that the cause of this condition is ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell

... hearty breakfast, "I should say it would be worth while taking steps to find out what had become of him. But that fellow can take care of himself; and when you come to think of it, his coming down here, an outsider, to the ball, was in itself rather fishy." ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... of argument. The case, in whatever form it is put, is always fresh and vigorous. Another epigrammatist, Oscar Wilde, in comparison with him may be said to have used the midnight oil so liberally in the preparation of his witticisms, that one might almost detect the fishy odour. But as with his prose so with his verses; Chesterton's productions are so fresh that they seem to spring from his vitality rather than his intellect. They are generally a trifle ragged and unpolished as if, like all their author's productions, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... it might retard our own individual destruction, that the prayer of the petition should be instantly complied with. Canning's crocodile tears should not move me; the hoops of the maids of honour should not hide him. I would tear him from the banisters of the back stairs, and plunge him in the fishy fumes of the dirtiest ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... digging in the sand for me. I'll take what science I get in another way—put up in predigested packages or bottled—any way but the fishy way. But please don't give me up. You shed a good deal of light on my mental darkness last winter in Egypt, and maybe I can improve still more." She suddenly turned with friendly, confidential manner toward Aleck, not waiting for replies to her remarks. "It's good to see you again! And ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... question during such a blow, but he discovered that there was plenty of game to be had with Frank's shotgun. Ducks could be obtained in any number, such as they were. Frank tried skinning them to get rid of the fishy flavor, and found it answered splendidly. Coots, treated in the same way, afforded ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... in the sea, is very useful to the poor people who live near the coast. They gather it when the tide is low, and dry it in the sun, and it serves them for nice soft beds; though I should think they must always keep a briny, fishy ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell." Now that is a most admirable description of the Book of Jonah. It has "a very ancient and fish-like smell." In fact, it is about the fishiest of all the fishy stories ever told. ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... his belt and used it on this higher portion of the cave. He was perched on a ledge which protruded into the water in the form of a wedge. At his back the wall of the cave was rough, and trails of weed were festooned on its projections. The smell of fishy decay was strong enough to register as Ross pulled off his mask. As far as he could now see there was ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... cold-blooded little proposition. I've known Winifred Stuart all my life, and I never knew her to have any impulse except a fishy one." ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... to explain Morley's unexplained two hours of last night, and his apparent terror today, and his whole connection with the case—the matter of the ring found in his hotel room, and all that? There's something fishy about this thing somehow, something fishy that includes Maria Fulton ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... larger than the river Kokoro; but the stream was at this time rather muddy, which Karfa assured me was occasioned by amazing shoals of fish. They were indeed seen in all directions, and in such abundance, that I fancied the water itself tasted and smelt fishy. As soon as we had crossed the river, Karfa gave orders that all the people of the coffle should in future keep close together, and travel in their proper station; the guides and young men were accordingly placed in the van, the women and slaves in the centre, and the freemen in the rear. In this ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... ear for such things, often found amusement standing unobtrusively by. To-night there was the usual comedy awaiting her enjoyment. A well-dressed dame came up to "Uncle Abe's" stall, where half a dozen lots of fishy miscellanaea were spread out. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... just what there was about Bingstetter that got me leery; but somehow he reminds me of a street faker or a museum lecturer. And it does seem sort of fishy that, just by gazin' at a bunch of flowers, he could dope out all this wild tale about five desp'rate men. Still, there was no gettin' away from the fact that he had hit it right about the bouquets appearin' reg'lar every Wednesday. That must mean something. But why Wednesdays? Now, what was there ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... window devoid of glass, though a shutter could be closed in bad weather, the walls circular and of rough, untouched, unconcealed stone, a pallet bed— the only attempt at furniture, except one chest—and Grisell's own mails tumbled down anyhow, and all pervaded by an ancient and fishy smell. She felt too downhearted even to creep out and ask for a pitcher of water. She took a long look over the gray, heaving sea, and tired as she was, it was long before she could pray and cry herself to sleep, and accustomed ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and started for the door. Mr. Dick came after me with something that smelled fishy on the end ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... old Pumblechook, preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... to London—dear old foggy, fried-fishy London! Ever notice that London is ringed around with the smell of fried fish and naphtha of an evening? The City smells of caretakers; and Piccadilly of patchouli; and the West End of petrol; but the smell of fish fried in tenth-rate oil in little side-streets rings them ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... from Frau Sophie that Athanas wished to speak to him, he hastened to his room. The great cuttle-fish swam toward him through the smoke, with his horrible fishy eyes fixed upon him, and fell upon him just like the sea-monster, while he cried, "Listen to me, sir; what is the meaning of your visits to this house? What are your intentions ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... thought Don's explanation sounded fishy. Why should it take six days to discover that b and p sounded almost the same? He quite forgot that he had not thought of b and p ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... to turn his thoughts to pleasanter topics. Perhaps asking him to have a glass of port was a mistake there are times when even bribery is bad policy. Briefly, after a mumbled remark that "there was something fishy," he refused to leave the box. Dry-eyed we watched him take it all down and depart in a dudgeon. We were left with a vision of shameless visitors with their twopenny calls and interminable bills running up even while we were away on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various

... What in the world ever led you to come to a field like this to labor? Surely there must have been many more congenial places open to such as you." He leaned forward and cast a sentimental glance at her, his eyes looking more "fishy" than ever. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... his enquiries is, firstly—nothing proved against anybody and no evidence of anything fishy going on in the place. This last point confirms my own experience, for, as I told you, I haven't yet been able to associate this particular island with any of the suspicious ongoings which undoubtedly ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know, and that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my cove, and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his fishy gills out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care whether it's homicide or not—anyway, it's a new kind of murder ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... quickly found ourselves in Billingsgate Market, —a dirty, evil-smelling, crowded precinct, thronged with people carrying fish on their heads, and lined with fish-shops and fish-stalls, and pervaded with a fishy odor. The footwalk was narrow,—as indeed was the whole street,—and filthy to travel upon; and we had to elbow our way among rough men and slatternly women, and to guard our heads from the contact of fish-trays; very ugly, grimy, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Mayhew is an officer and a gentleman. I admit that my yarn does sound fishy to a stranger. Besides, fellows, Mr. Mayhew represents the naval officers through whose good opinion our employers hope to sell a big fleet of submarine torpedo boats ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham

... you crazy, son? I needed Armstrong, bad. Rinehart knew it, and had him taken care of. It was fishy—it stunk from here to Mars, but Rinehart covered it up fast and clean. But with the stuff you got up in the Colony, we can charge Rinehart with murder, and the whole Senate knows his motive already. He didn't dare to let ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... yellow line of the watery February sunset had hardly faded as she tripped up the long drive under the gaunt, tossing trees. Mr. Edwards still lounged in elegant leisure in the hall, conversing with a gigantic young footman, and his fishy eyes kindled for the second time as Sybilla appeared, flushed and bright and sparkling, ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... ever saw! That stock-room could have been cleaned any time this month and it's too heavy work for me anyway; it spoils my hands, grubbing around those nasty, sticky, splintery boxes and barrels. Instead of being out of doors, I've got to be shut up in that smelly, rummy, tobacco-y, salt-fishy, pepperminty place with Cephas Cole! He won't have a pleasant morning, I can tell you! I shall snap his head off every time he speaks ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... done," said Bruce. "But it's a bit fishy that he should have been playing fives all right two days ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse

... of stone cut in the shape of a half moon, was about ten inches long, four inches wide and an inch deep. The moss that served as a wick was arranged along the straight side, and gave out a strong, fishy odour ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... of them there mermaids,' Says old Bill's ghost to me; 'It ain't no place for a Christian Below there—under sea. For it's all blown sand and shipwrecks And old bones eaten bare, And them cold fishy females With long green weeds ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... with an air of intelligence and insight. And all these portraits are so pat and telling, and look at you so spiritedly from the walls, that, compared with the sort of living people one sees about the streets, they are as bright new sovereigns to fishy and obliterated sixpences. Some disparaging thoughts upon our own generation could hardly fail to present themselves; but it is perhaps only the sacer vates who is wanting; and we also, painted by such a man as Carolus Duran, may look in holiday immortality upon our children ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... morsel of grub between the pair of us, then," declared Ross. "Outlook beastly unpromising. Faced with starvation unless we make up our minds to knock over some gulls. They are horribly fishy to eat, I believe, and we've ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... of Colney's, in the which Hengist and Horsa, our fishy Saxon originals, in modern garb of liveryman and gaitered squire, flat-headed, paunchy, assiduously servile, are shown blacking Ben-Israel's boots and grooming the princely stud of the Jew, had come so near to Victor Radnor's apprehensions of a possible, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... York is your old home on?" he demands savagely. The lad blinks his fishy eyes and fixes his hat on that Ben ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... bluntly. "You sure must want to get out.... Damn you, Blake, this whole deal looks fishy to me!... ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... a barracks than a home; and from the ancient and fishy smell about the place, the party from the battleship was sure that it had not long since housed fishermen and ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... is when fully developed in man has already been shown; what it is in the fishy stage of development, when it is the smaller portion of the brain, may be understood by a dissection given in Serres "Anatomie Comparee du Cerveau," representing the brain of the codfish dissected or opened from above. In this figure H is the spinal cord, E the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various



Words linked to "Fishy" :   suspicious, questionable, shady, fish, colloquialism



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com