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Fishy   /fˈɪʃi/   Listen
Fishy

adjective
1.
Of or relating to or resembling fish.
2.
Not as expected.  Synonyms: funny, shady, suspect, suspicious.  "Up to some funny business" , "Some definitely queer goings-on" , "A shady deal" , "Her motives were suspect" , "Suspicious behavior"






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"Fishy" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 ...
— 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

... common at this season, is but vexation of spirit,—you will feel vicious enough to eat him in any shape. His brother, the beautiful white bugler, you will hardly meet at dinner, he being the shyest of his kind. A Canada goose—not the tough and fishy bird of the Northern coast, but grain- and grass-fed from fledging-time—is tender, delicate, and everyway presentable. From the back upper gallery that looks upon the prairie you are likely to see ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... 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 the world, like a pair of young bears, with ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... me, ladies, if I look at my watch. Ah, half an hour's grace. I am going to ask you both to dine with me to-day. The procession moves at one sharp. If there are any signs of reluctance on the part of the hostess and her guest, I am to take one in each hand, with whatever fishy impedimenta cannot be lost, and repair with you to your ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... that the scorching Sun By this time half his daily race has run? The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore And hurries homeward with his fishy store. Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil To eat our dinner and ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... 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 rupees ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... the Trojan host; but thoughts of flight, Companions of chill fear, from heaven infused, Possess'd the Grecians; every leader's heart Bled, pierced with anguish insupportable. As when two adverse winds blowing from Thrace, 5 Boreas and Zephyrus, the fishy Deep Vex sudden, all around, the sable flood High curl'd, flings forth the salt weed on the shore Such tempest rent the mind of every Greek. Forth stalk'd Atrides with heart-riving wo 10 Transfixt; he bade his heralds call by name Each Chief to council, but without the sound ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... by M. Verdurin. "The Chronicle of Saint Denis, and the authenticity of its information is beyond question, leaves us no room for doubt on that point. No one could be more fitly chosen as Patron by a secularising proletariat than that mother of a Saint, who let him see some pretty fishy saints besides, as Suger says, and other great St. Bernards of the sort; for with her it was a case of taking just ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... herself with a limp and fishy handshake. She and I were sworn enemies in our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurked in Sally's eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that enveloped me in an atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... were setting netted traps for them along the coasts of Spain and France, in Sardinia, the Straits of Messina and the waters of the Adriatic. But this wholesale slaughter scarcely lessened the compact, fishy squadrons. After wandering through the windings of the Grecian Archipelago, they passed the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, stirring the two narrow passageways with the violence of their invisible ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... but on a line with the front seats, there was a double side door opening out onto a dock. From where Georgina sat she could look out through the door and see the lights of a hundred boats twinkling in long wavy lines across the black water, and now and then a salt breeze with the fishy tang she loved, stole across the room and touched her ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... 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

... cling to rocks and old ship-timber over which the tide ebbs and flows. When their fleet of boats was weather-bound, the butchers raised their price, and the spit was busier than the frying-pan; for this was a place of fish, and known as such, to all the country round about; the very air was fishy, being perfumed with dead sculpins, hardheads, and dogfish, strewn plentifully on the beach. You see, children, the village is but little changed, since your ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... 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

... arrived, looking rather seedy, but he is alive. He has been closeted with the governor for the last two hours, giving an account of himself. I hope it is all fair and square, but he won't let us into his secrets, though I told him his conduct had been rather "fishy" in our eyes. What are you going to do? Run away from me? You are such a dignified little soul generally, that I expected we should have a saunter up to the house together; but I forgot that "love lends wings," isn't that the saying? ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre

... her without question into the unknown wilderness of the Northland, even as she had accompanied her without protest through the maze of the far South Seas. With all her averseness to speech and her vacuous, fishy stare, the girl had long since learned that Big Lena was both loyal and efficient and shrewd. But, Big Lena as a wife! Chloe smiled broadly ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... weights, writhing and twisting his way among the machinery, till there, looking out through the face of that old family clock, distinct and palpable as the sun at noonday, or the moon in a cloudless night, I saw the ogre head of that dog; his great glassy, fishy eyes, his half drooping, half erect ears, his slavering jaws, and as he gazed in a stupid meaningless stare upon me, uttered his everlasting bow, wow! Tell me that the room was dark; that not a ray of light penetrated the ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... for all we know. Did you notice what he said about holding a commission from Azuria, and then hurrying to explain that Azuria isn't on the ordinary maps—just a wee bit of a kingdom up in the Carpathians, yet in the confines of Roumania? I call that fishy!" ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... the world is the explanation of this?" Frobisher asked himself testily. "I'm certain there is something fishy about the fellow, and I would give a trifle to be able to discover what game it is that he's playing. Where, in the name of Fortune, has he ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... inlet, and paddled along its eastern shore until forty minutes after eight A.M. when we encamped in a small cove. We found a single log of drift wood; it was pine, and sufficiently large to enable us to cook a portion of the bear, which had a slight fishy taste, but ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... 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

... after all, this young man had nothing overt against him, beyond a fishy blue eye and an inane expression; so, feeling that I had perhaps gone a little too far, I continued after a minute, 'And your ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... needlework was as much at home with St. Paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... doing so looks rather fishy," the first speaker remarked. "That thousand pounds note must have been a sort of ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... 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

... what he finds. He finds a good average sheet of water, set in a circlet of dark forest,—forests sloping up to wooded hills, and these to wooded mountains. Very good and satisfactory elements, and worth notice,—especially when the artistic eye is also a fisherman's eye, and he detects fishy spots. As to wilderness, there can be none more complete. At the upper end of the lake is a trace of humanity in a deserted cabin on a small clearing. There a hermit pair once lived,—man and wife, utterly alone for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... just as well, for if we had been allowed to converse further I might have told him that another female woman, Doria Jornicroft, was staying at Northlands, and he might not have come. Jaffery was always a queer fish where women were concerned. Not a chilly, fishy fish, but a sort of Laodicean fish, now hot, now cold. I have seen him shrink like a sensitive plant in the presence of an ingenue of nineteen and royster in Pantagruelian fashion with a mature member of the chorus of the Paris Opera; I ham e also known him ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... which we saw them eat, was dried fish, and the flesh of some animal, either broiled or roasted. Some of the latter that was bought, seemed to be bear's flesh, but with a fishy taste. They also eat the larger sort of fern root, mentioned at Nootka, either baked, or dressed in some other way; and some of our people saw them eat freely of a substance which they supposed to be the inner part of the pine-bark. Their drink is most probably water; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... before taken out for the housewife's convenience, is removed, as is also the tenderloin—a fishy-shaped piece of flesh—often used for sausage, but which makes delicious steak. The middling or sides are now cut out, leaving the shoulders square-shaped and the hams pointed, or they may be rounded ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... 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 to preserve ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... and urged those who had a taste for the Great Outdoors to consider what they had to offer. The folders created a sensation. They came in the morning after a night of excessive heat and humidity. The guests found them in their mail when, fishy-eyed and irritable, they went ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... Martin, so angrily that Malcolm thought it wise to make a diversion, especially as a warm fishy odour in the adjoining kitchen heralded the near arrival of the noontide repast. When he saw more of the Martins he invariably noticed the smell of fish; it seemed to be their principal diet—fish broiled or fried or boiled, or even at tea-time shrimps ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... head drop on the table, now raised it, and looking at Fernand with his dull and fishy eyes, he said,—"Kill Dantes! who talks of killing Dantes? I won't have him killed—I won't! He's my friend, and this morning offered to share his money with me, as I shared mine with him. I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... through his fishy eyes for a moment in silence, then there broke from his lips a peal of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to 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

... him," said Eileen; "it's been so lonely and stupid to lie in bed with a red nose and fishy eyes and pains in one's back and limbs. Please do let us have ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... if you like," said he. "I could a bought vour times as much vor one and zixpence coast-ways, if I'd a mind, and I'll give thee no more, and not a word of a lie." His oratory conquered the coyness of the fishy damsel; and he invited the lady to take a glass of "zomat avore he topped ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various

... shocked. "I think I saw a ring on your finger," he said, as soon as he recovered himself. He lifted my left hand in his own cold-fishy paw. The one ring I wear is of plain gold; it belonged to my father and it has his initials ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... foot-hills, is a pool that does look, if not nymphatic, at least a little fishy, as they say; the story of Rome's dealings with Lars Porsenna. It even looks as if something historical might be caught in it. The Roman historians have been obviously camouflaging: they do not want ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the American, "we've only seed one seal, as I reckon. That was that air 'Sea Olly-fant,' as the Norwegee called it, and the animile's meat warn't 'zackly what this child ken stomach! As for them penguins, I guess they're kinder fishy." ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... how are we going to get a couple of prisoners if the old fool thinks 'personally that that part of the trench is unoccupied,' —sounds kind of fishy, doesn't it mate?" ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... 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 of all ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... said Bassett easily. "Well, in this article it seemed some woman or other had made a confession. It sounded fishy to me." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... sure he does. I will assist you," answered the former teacher readily, with a malicious gleam in his fishy eyes. "I wish you had all three boys here, to tar ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... mighty bass voice had this Collins also, and could sing, "Larboard Watch, Ahoy!" "Down in a Coal-Mine," and other profound ditties in a way to make all the glasses on the table jingle; but withal, as you now suspect, rather a fishy character, and undeserving of the unqualified respect which the boy had for him. And there was Dr. Romsen, lean, satirical, kindly, a skilful though reluctant physician, who regarded it as a personal injury ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... without emotion Of his distressful tail. When with my pencil once I tried to draw one, (I dare not show it here) Mayhap it is because I never saw one, The picture looked so queer. I vision him half feline and half fishy, A paradox in twins, Unmixable as vitriol and vichy— A thing of fur and fins. A feline Tantalus, forever chasing His fishy self to rend; His finny self forever self-effacing In circles without end. This tale may have a Moral running through it As AEsop had in his; If so, dear reader, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... 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 ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... was seated one fine summer evening in his shore-going cabin, that used to be the abode of fishy smells, marine-stores, Polly, and bliss, but which now presented an unfurnished and desolate aspect. He had just returned from a voyage. Little "kickshaws" for Polly lay on the table before him, and a small fire burned in the grate, with a huge kettle thereon. A stormy sigh escaped ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... be kept idle. Fishing was out of the 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, ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... and killed half a dozen of them with a club. On his way back to camp he discovered a few handfuls of sea salt in a crevice between some rocks, and the syndicate breakfasted an hour later on roast gooney. It was oily and fishy but an excellent substitute for nothing at all, and the syndicate was grateful. The breakfast would have been cheerful, in fact, if Captain Scraggs had not made repeated reference to his excessive thirst. McGuffey lost patience before the meal was over, and cuffed Captain Scraggs, who ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his brows puckered and his mouth stern. First Borkins, and then Brellier, and now—her! All of them begging him almost upon their knees to forego a perfectly harmless little quest of discovery. There seemed to his mind something almost fishy about it all. What then were these "Frozen Flames"? What secret did they hide? And what malignant power dwelt behind ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... came; some said he was an Italian, others a gipsy, others a Turk, others an African; the old women called him a magician, although a magician in these days may appear fishy; as for me, I should be quite tempted to say the same as the old women. What makes this likely is, that he always had with him a great red ape called Gargousse, which was so cunning, and wicked, that one would have said he had Old Nick in him. By and by I shall speak again of Gargousse. As to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... feasted on all the luxuries, but fish was rarer than rubies. When we had it we did not care if we stank out the whole lodge with odours of its frying. We would lie down to sleep content in a thick fishy, paraffin-y, dripping-y atmosphere. When I came home I could not think what the delicious smell was in a certain street. Then my imagination struck out a picture—Grimers laboriously frying a dab ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... Jack. "Mr. 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

... roof. I found out afterwards that the widder had more'n half promised to go with HIM. He slumped down in his chair as if his mainmast was carried away, and he didn't even rise to blow for the rest of the time we was in the shanty. Just set there, looking fishy-eyed ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... very fishy place, not of the Danube rolling majestically not many yards from where I am writing, but of the sea. The inn I am in is called the Krebs or Crab, round the corner is the Crawfish, and somewhere ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... entirely white and others grey, having feet like a duck, and subsist mostly on flying-fishes, which they catch while in the air. I have made many a meal on these birds, but it was for want of other victuals, for they taste very fishy, and are apt to make one sick, if not previously well salted. They are so silly, when weary of flying, that they will light upon your hand, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play rouge-et-noir at Foretdechene in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, in my dreams last night—that I should meet ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... others, disgraces itself by a scurrilous report of what "the gay old girl said to a reporter;" and the New York World, of course, waxed very funny in its account of the late convention. These gibes at Miss Anthony's personal appearance, unwillingness to tell her age, "fishy eyes," etc., are read by her friends in Rochester with indignation and with contempt for the press which will publish such ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... at right angles to the shore, running up the valley of the Avon; but it soon ceased to be fishy, and became agricultural, owning a few cottages of very humble gentility, which were wont to hang out boards to attract lodgers of small means. At one of these Grace rang, and obtained admittance to a parlour with crazy French ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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

... his neighbour, Mr. Bouncer, kindly informed him, "uncommon seedy, and doosid fishy about the eyes;" and it was some days even before he had quite recovered from the novel excitement of Mr. Smalls' ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... went into the waiting room to find out when the next 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 raise enough money to pay for her ticket and hire a taxi when she got to Paris. ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... thus prepared, is a uniform mass of fishy but not putrefactive odor, not disagreeable to handle. It retains perfectly all the fertilizing power of the fish. Lands, manured with this compost, will keep in heart and improve: while, as is well known to our coast farmers, the ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... man small of stature, with a hooked nose, fishy blue eyes, a thin, hard mouth, and a face seamed and wrinkled. Yet he was quite evidently not an old man. Charley had noticed that some of the tough characters in his home town looked like that, and the more he studied Ranger Lumley's face, the less he liked ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... of the house before daybreak the next morning, and riding to Yarmouth, took a very early and (with perhaps a subtle appropriateness) a very fishy train to London. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... people. In one of our gallops along the beach my stirrup-strap broke, and we stopped in front of a solitary hut to ask for a stout string. A squid was drying on a pole and scenting the air with its fishy odors. In answer to our call an old man in a calico shirt came out of the hut, and, taking some strips of hou-bark, twisted them into a strong string and fastened the stirrup. I gave him a real, and he exclaimed "Aloha!" with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... is that you couldn't get a better description of what happened to Gussie as I spoke these heartening words. His brow cleared, his eyes brightened, he lost that fishy look, and he gazed at the slug, which was still on the long, long trail with something approaching bonhomie. A ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... there's something fishy between Eve and me," reflected Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high spirits when Eve came ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... said hastily; and his forehead grew damp as he floundered about, looking fishy now about the eyes and mouth, which opened and shut at intervals, as if to give passage to words which never came. "Felt I was—er—little out of sorts, you know, and thought I'd see the doctor. Let's see, I said so ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... "It did look fishy, my friend. You won't mind my saying that much. Clearer heads than your jury of village store-keepers and Adirondack farmers might have given the same verdict. But old lady Gramm's responsibility hadn't begun then. It was a matter of ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... absence of sunlight the leaden clouds 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

... hardy creature so full of the 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 ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... 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 ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... continued not only silent but quite ignorant of the purport of what was said. My handkerchief was at length taken out, and many hands being at length laid upon me, I retired as ceremoniously as circumstances permitted, but not until I had been so manipulated by fishy paws that the peculiar odour of the savage adhered ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... name, mother and son trembled, and none the less because the ex-dragoon had the face of a tough old sailor of the worst type. His fishy gray eyes, his piebald moustache, the remains of his shaggy hair fringing a skull that was the color of fresh butter, all gave an indescribably debauched and libidinous expression to his appearance. He wore an old iron-gray overcoat ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... frantic vehemence in the use of birch-brooms, to be the cleanest population under the sun; an assertion of superiority somewhat belied by an all-pervading odour of decomposed vegetable matter, a small heap of which refuse, including egg-shells and fishy offal—which the town in the matutinal cleansing process offered up to the sun-god as incense upon an altar—lay before every door, to be collected by the local scavenger at his leisure, or to be blown about and disseminated by the winds ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... settee in front of him, rose the lengthy and fishy person with the cowhide boots and enormous hands. His name was Josiah Badger and he was, according to Trumet's estimate, "a little mite lackin' in his top riggin'." He stuttered, and this infirmity became more and more apparent as he ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 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; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure. So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, web-footed sort of personage, with something like a tuft ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... may be 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, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... probably gulls and eider duck. To his sailors—always hungry and partly fed on salted provisions, as seamen were down to a few years ago—this inexhaustible supply of fresh food was a source of great enjoyment. They were indifferent, no doubt, to the fishy flavour of the auks and the guillemots, and only noticed that they were splendidly fat. Moreover, the birds attracted Polar bears "as large as cows and as white as swans". The bears would swim off from the shore to the islands (unless they could reach them ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... Unaquarium parson's garden," she said. "I expect they're having a tea-fight. They're always up to something fishy." ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... above the other, on the face of the cliff. Here it is always cool and pleasant in the hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices above one can revel in the sunny land and sea-scapes without that fishy odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the bay to Runswick, ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... 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, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... 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 heard all about ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... he cried. 'Senor Larralde, you remember me, Algeciras, and your pink love letter—deuced fishy love letter, that; nearly got me into a devil of a row, I can tell ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... 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 the ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... watching till the 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 the least; his thoughts were half a mile away, at the most precipitous ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... large species of sea-eel, furnishing a somewhat vile viand, but eatable when strongly curried. Not at all despised by the people of Cornwall in "fishy pie." ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... he was there; and apparently no search was made either at the time or afterwards. In fact, if it could be shown that the missing man ever left Hurst's house alive, or that he was wearing the scarab when he arrived there, things would look rather fishy for the Bellinghams—for, of course, the girl must have been in it if the father was. But there's the crux: there is no proof that the man ever did leave Hurst's house alive. And if he didn't—but there! as I said at first, whichever turning you take, you find that it ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... branch of rural economy in some convenient situations, and consists in supplying them with plenty of healthy food, and confining them; and ducks and geese must be prevented from going into water, which prevents them from becoming fat, and they also thereby acquire a rancid, fishy taste. They are put into a dark place, and crammed with a paste made of barley meal, mutton-suet, and some treacle or coarse sugar mixed with milk, and are found to be completely ripe in a fortnight. If kept longer, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... here to tear things up. 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 Vorse ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... 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

... show of an impossible blue through the openings of a white-washed rampart. I try a 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

... when boiled hard and eaten cold, with pepper, salt, vinegar, and mustard, make a delightful breakfast dish. Many persons have an antipathy to such eggs; but it is from eating them in the soft state, when they have always a fishy taste. Try them as above, and they will change their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... 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

... flying chaps he had promised a girl to find Jim Beckett's grave. One of the fellows laughed too, and made a remark which set Herter thinking. Later, he was able to refer to the subject again, and learned enough to suspect that there was something fishy about the Bosch announcement of my death and burial. He tells me that, at this point, he was able to send you a verbal message by a consumptive prisoner about to be repatriated. Whether you got that ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... getting on. The last time I thus stole another memory of her splendid presence we were only a few paces from the gate, and when my reluctant eyes turned again to their rightful work, they looked straight into a pair of fishy eyes set in a face as blank and ugly as a bladder ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... rough trail into Estes Park, for some trout. The day was fine, and hazy with the smoke of forest fires a thousand miles away; the park stretched its English beauties off to the base of its bordering mountains in natural landscape and archaic peace; the stream was just fishy enough to tempt lingering along its banks. Hour after hour the sun moved westward and the fish moved eastward, or disappeared altogether, until at last when the fisherman cinched his mule, sunset was nearer than he thought. Darkness caught him before he could catch his trail. Not ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... monstrous labyrinth, a cortical lute of three thousand strings, and upon it impacted the early music at the dawn of things. In the planetary slime he heard the screaming struggles of fishy beasts; in the tanglewood of hot, aspiring forests were muffled roarings of gigantic mastodons, of tapirs that humped at the sky, beetles big as camels, and crocodiles with wings. Wicked creatures snarled crepitantly, and their crackling noises were echoed ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... she should trust to Kalliope to go back with her, for when once Aunt Jane get into the very fishy hamlet of Tideshole, which lay beyond the quarries, there was no knowing when she might get ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... may be dozens around 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 ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... 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 the word pinguin. Neither is the conjecture ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... observed Hardenberg, twelve hours later, when Slick Dick, sitting on the edge of his bunk, looked stolidly and with fishy eyes from face to face. "We wa'n't quite ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

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

... "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, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... getting back to Willett," said Mount quietly. "As for me, my errand is done, and the strange, fishy smells of New York town stifle me. I'm stale and timid, and I like not the shape of the gallows yonder. My health requires the half-light of the woods, Mr. Renault, and the friendly shadows which lie at hand like rat-holes in a granary. I've drunk all the ale at the Bull's-Head—weak stuff ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... inoperable tumour, which little by little has deprived him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each other by helping him. One day a load of wood will find its way to his door. The next a few fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left ever so quietly inside his woodshed—and so it goes. It is a constant marvel to me that these people, who live so perilously near the margin of want, are always so eager to share up. Francois is sitting in our cellar as I write pulling nails ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... it would be very well," sighed the boatswain; "though I suspect they're somewhat of a fishy flavour—not that we should be particular when ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... "That's the fishy bit! Sing says he opened the door and looked out for a breath of air, when someone hit him over the nut. The next he says he remembers was being tied up. His head is cut open all right, but all the same, I wouldn't wonder if ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... shiver in the sea; The knight, Salmasius,1 pitying your hard lot, Bounteous intends your nakedness to clothe, And, lavish of his paper, is preparing Chartaceous jackets to invest you all, Jackets resplendent with his arms and fame, Exultingly parade the fishy mart, And sing his praise with checquered, livery, That well might serve to grace the letter'd store Of those who pick their noses and ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... highly suggestive of having just been caught for breakfast. The sight would have been painfully prophetic but for the food we had brought with us; for, of all meals, a Japanese breakfast is the most cold, the most watery, and the most generally fishy in the world. As it was, breakfast consisted of pathetic copies of consecrated originals. It might have been excellent but for the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... and charms of animated nature, thus seen in fair perfection. Lyme. however, brought me to myself; for the part by the sea, where we fixed our abode, was so dirty and fishy that I rejoiced when we left ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... it!" declared Jimmie flatly. "The whole thing sounds mighty fishy—not meaning any disrespect," he added addressing the man who sat leaning back ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

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

... "only mind how you shoot, for if anything should happen to fall into the water, the fish'll have it before we know where we are. This seems to me," he added drily, "rather a fishy place." ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... for the strange movements of the smack in question, except that there was at the helm a man who had rendered his reason incapable of action. With dull, fishy eyes, that stared idiotically at nothing, his hand on the tiller, and his mind asleep, Georgie Fox stood on the deck of the ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... When their fleet of boats was weather-bound, the butchers raised their price, and the spit was busier than the frying-pan; for this was a place of fish, and known as such to all the country round about. The very air was fishy, being perfumed with dead sculpins, hard-heads and dogfish strewn plentifully on the beach.—You see, children, the village is but little changed since your mother ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... 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

... eyes dully 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 ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... hatcheries extend for two miles along the river. Hundreds of thousands of ducks are reared at the hatcheries, some for eggs, and others for food. The ducks are fed on shell-fish, and foreigners imagine that both the meat and the eggs have a fishy flavor. Eggs and edible bird's nests are also brought from neighboring sea-cliffs to the Manila markets; and both are considered ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... away, without doing any mischief. As it is now rare for any goats to fall in their way, we conceived that they lived principally on young seals; and some of our people, having the curiosity to kill dogs sometimes, and dress them, seemed to agree that they had a fishy taste. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... always felt that there was something fishy about the grasshopper's back legs. I mean, why should he wave his back legs about when he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is purely due to the nervous excitement produced by the act of singing. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... what she called my gallantry; and I was so taken up by her words that I hardly noticed the scowl Garcia gave as he came in. In fact, just then my heart felt so large that in my joy I could have shaken hands with him so warmly that I should have made the bones of that fishy fin of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... the fishy steam, that to each blade Rank scenting clings! See! how the morning dews They sweep, that from their feet besprinkling drop Dispersed, and leave a track oblique behind. Now on firm land they range, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... held intercourse with people of a villainous odour every day. If the subject of these remarks had been chosen among the original Twelve Apostles, he would not have associated with the rest, because he could not have stood the fishy smell of some of his comrades who came from around the Sea of Galilee. He would have resigned his commission with some such remark as he makes in the extract quoted above: "Master, if thou art going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... evidently that if the matter got abroad, 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

... many kinds of fish known to these islands, and other stories connected with them, which, if gathered together, would make an interesting collection of yarns as "fishy" as ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... an Englishman talks of women and children, you may be sure there's something fishy about the business. Your doings will have ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad



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



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