fishing

Noun

fishing (countable and uncountable, plural fishings)

1. (uncountable) The act of catching fish.

   We had a good day's fishing at the weekend.

   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:

     Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house ; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something ; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.

2. (uncountable, informal) The act of catching other forms of seafood, separately or together with fish.
4. (uncountable) Commercial fishing: the business or industry of catching fish and other seafood for sale.

   This is good news for the fishing industry.

5. (countable) A fishery, a place for catching fish.
   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     the rent of the fishings

   • 1917, The Scots Law Times, volume 2, page 190:

     Generally speaking, the only fishings which appear separately in Valuation Rolls as having a lettable value in their actual state from year to year are salmon-fishings.

See also

• (adj): See fishing
• (adv): halieutically
• (science): halieutics, piscatology
• (writing on fishing): halieutics, piscatory

See also

• piscatorious, piscatory, piscatorial, piscatorical, piscatorian; piscatorially

Verb

fishing

1. present participle and gerund of fish