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*piskós1reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskaz1reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fisk1reconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150fisċ1
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fisch1‘an animal that inhabits the water or the meat of such’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1774fish1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English fish
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature: “The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster……”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*piskósWiktionary, English fishreconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskazWiktionary, English fishreconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fiskWiktionary, English fishreconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150fisċWiktionary, English fish
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fischWiktionary, English fish‘an animal that inhabits the water or the meat of such’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1774fishWiktionary, English fish. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature: “The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster……”

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with fish, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

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

  • picture ← pictūra ← pingō ← *pingō ← *pinéḱti
  • paint ← peynten ← peintier ← pingō ← *pingō
  • file ← fēl ← *finhlō
  • pint ← pinte ← pinte ← *pincta ← picta
  • feud ← fede ← faide ← faida ← *faihiþu
  • depiction ← dēpictiō ← dēpingō ← pingō ← *pingō
  • depict ← depicten ← dēpictus ← dēpingō ← pingō
  • pigment ← pigmentum ← pingō ← *pingō ← *pinéḱti
  • pictorial ← pictōrius ← pictor ← pingō ← *pingō
  • pimento ← pigmentum ← pingō ← *pingō ← *pinéḱti
  • piscina ← piscis ← *piskis ← *pisk-í-s

26 more relatives in the full family tree

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Another origin of fish

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peyḱ-‘to paint, mark’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pisk-ó-sreconstructed
  3. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*fiskazreconstructed
  4. Proto-Germanicc. 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

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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.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “fish”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *piskós / fish