fishscale

See also: fish-scale and fish scale

English

Alternative forms

• fish-scale

Etymology

From fish +‎ scale. The use for sense 2 is from its appearance as shiny yellowish flakes resembling the scales of a fish, as opposed to dull white powder.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

fishscale (countable and uncountable, plural fishscales)

1. (countable, literal) The scale of a fish.
3. (uncountable, slang) Cocaine, usually of high quality, taken directly off the brick and uncut.
   • 1989, Terry Williams, chapter 2, in The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring‎, page 41:

     The kids out here don't know a flake from a fish—if you asked them what fishscale is, they wouldn't know. [Fishscale is high-grade cocaine powder with few rock-like chunks.]

   • 2011, Boston George, Caroline McGill, Soft: Cocaine Love Stories‎, unnumbered page:

     Oh shit, it was Fishscale! It was love at first sight. He nearly fell back in his chair. "No mothafuckin' way!" he yelled. He jumped up and danced a little two-step jig and thanked his lucky stars for the come-up. Fishscale cocaine! It was fucking Fishscale!

   • 2015, Duane Swierczynski, Canary‎, unnumbered page:

     "You can get anything on here—isn't it incredible?" Slick Guy continues. "I couldn't believe it, either. I mean anything. MDMA from Holland, high-end weed, fish-scale coke, whatever.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:fishscale.

Anagrams

• scalefish