Etymograph

English

fish

Fish comes from Middle English fisch ‘an animal that inhabits the water or the meat…’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *piskós.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*piskósreconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskazreconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fiskreconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150fisċ
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fisch‘an animal that inhabits the water or the meat of such’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1774fish

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*piskósreconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskazreconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fiskreconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150fisċ
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fisch‘an animal that inhabits the water or the meat of such’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1774fish

Earliest quotation: 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature: “The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster……”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *peyḱ- ‘to paint, mark’

picture, paint, file, pint, feud, depiction, depict, pigment, pictorial, pimento, piscina, 26 more

Another origin of fish

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peyḱ-‘to paint, mark’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*pisk-ó-sreconstructed
  3. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskazreconstructed
  4. Proto-Germanic, derivedc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskōną‘to fish, to catch fish’reconstructed
  5. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fiskōn‘to fish, to catch fish’reconstructed
  6. Old Englishc. 450–1150fiscian‘to fish’
  7. Englishtodayfish

Today it means

noun A typically cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills; any vertebrate that is not a tetrapod.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *piskós / fish

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