fish out

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

fish out (third-person singular simple present fishes out, present participle fishing out, simple past and past participle fished out)

1. To catch all or nearly all the fish in (a given body of water), so that few or none remain.

   Settlers came and soon fished out the lake.

2. To pick up or pull something or someone from (a body of water).
   • 2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 5:34 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎, archived from the original on 3 November 2022:

     Losing nearly a third of the heavy cruisers, including Admiral Kurita's flagship, the Atago, was not an especially-auspicious start to the operation, especially with the admiral himself having to be fished out of the water by a destroyer.

3. (idiomatic) To search for by rummaging, and then extract (an item from e.g. a container); to obtain.

   I fished out my keys from the bottom of my bag.

   I fished out some information from some old copies of the local gazette.

Anagrams

• outfish