English
rainbowfish
From rainbow + fish.
Proto-Indo-European *bʰewgʰ- ‘to bend’
…
Proto-Germanic *regnabugô
Proto-West Germanic *regnabogō
Old English reġnboga
Middle English reynbowe
English rainbow
Proto-Indo-European *piskós
Proto-Germanic *fiskaz
Proto-West Germanic *fisk
Old English fisċ
Middle English fisch ‘an animal that inhabits the water or the meat…’
English fish
Today it means
noun Any of the small colourful freshwater fish in the family Melanotaeniidae, native to northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “rainbowfish”. 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 / rainbowfish