English

Adjective

fishly ‎(comparative fishlier or more fishly, superlative fishliest or most fishly)

1. Of, relating to, characteristic of, or pertaining to fishes; piscine.
   • 1699, Cowley, Cooke's Voyage:

     [...] which fowles "would strike at our men as they were aloft: "some of them wee killed and eat: they seemed-" to us very good, only tasted somewhat fishly.

   • 1916, Everybody's magazine:

     Twice the cork bobbed prophecies of a fishly investigation. Twice the angler raised the squirming bait; but each time minus the scaly victim.

   • 1916, University of Michigan. College of Engineering, The Michigan technic:

     At this the Fish did titter a fishly Titter, and Bit!

   • 1920, John Arthur Thomson, Biology of the Seasons:

     It is a personality of a fishly sort.

   • 1989, Einar Ingvald Haugen, Norwegian-American Historical Association, Immigrant idealist:

     The perch, for example, regards the danger as exaggerated: all one needed was to exercise moderation, "as a fishly virtue"; "it had bitten off many a bait without suffering any damage to its body."

   • 2000, Piers Anthony, Vale of the Vole:

     In due course they reached the far side of the Element of Water, gourd annex. The path lead through a translucent vertical wall, and there seemed to be no special challenge to passing through it, except for their fishly status.

   • 2009, Jean Elizabeth Ward, Chinese Wonder Book:

     "In sooth, the fellow talks as if in earnest," remarked the king, after a moment's reflection, "and though the request is, perhaps, the strangest to which I have ever listened, I really see no reason why I should not turn a fishly ear."