fishmonger

From Middle English fisshemonger; equivalent to fish +‎ monger.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɪʃˌmʌŋɡ.ə(ɹ)/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

fishmonger (plural fishmongers)

1. (British) A person who sells fish.

   Synonyms: fishman, (formal, rare) ichthyopolist

   • 1850, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Plato; or, The Philosopher”, in Representative Men: Seven Lectures, Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson and Company, […], page 58:

     If he made transcendental distinctions, he fortified himself by drawing all his illustrations from sources disdained by orators and polite conversers; from mares and puppies; from pitchers and soup-ladles; from cooks and criers; the shops of potters, horse-doctors, butchers, and fishmongers.

2. (British, rare) A shop that sells fish; a fishmonger's shop, a fishmonger's.
   • 1931, Grace Hegger Lewis, Half a Loaf‎, H. Liveright, page 225:

     And Susan, sure of this inevitable answer, would ask Cook to pop into the fishmonger for a nice bit of salmon, […]

   • 1990, Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Light Years, Simon and Schuster, published 1995, →ISBN, page 294:

     A nice woman at the fishmonger in Earl’s Court Road—she had to walk miles to find a fish shop—told her how to cook the fillets of plaice she bought.

   • 2007, Leslie Ann Bosher, To the Manor Drawn, Murdoch Books, →ISBN, page 157:

     Cornish peppered mackerel, smoked haddock, Scottish herring and pearl-white skate wings are all laid on a bed of crushed ice at the fishmonger.

3. (figurative, archaic) A pimp.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

• (person who sells fish): (female): fishmongeress (fishmongress), fishwife, fishwoman, piscatrix (historical)