Meaning
A person who is conspicuously uncomfortable or out of place, because the situation does not fit their skills, habits, or temperament. Nearly always used with 'like', 'feel', or 'be': someone feels like a fish out of water in unfamiliar surroundings. Neutral in tone and current across all English-speaking regions. Neutral and widely usable; typically sympathetic or self-deprecating rather than insulting. Regional use: General English.
Origin
One of the oldest metaphors in the language. The Phrase Finder traces it to Chaucer, whose General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (written in the 1380s-1390s) likens a cloisterless monk to 'a fish that is waterless'; the OED dates the established phrase around 1387 to 1405. The earliest record in essentially modern wording cited by the Phrase Finder is Samuel Purchas's travel work Pilgrimage (1613): 'The Arabians out of the desarts are as Fishes out of the Water.' The image is so elementary that equivalents exist in many languages, and no single inventor can be credited; the documented English history simply begins with Chaucer's version of the comparison.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- be a fish out of water
- feel like a fish out of water
- like a fish out of water
- look like a fish out of water
Usage Examples
- On his first week at the farm, the lifelong city accountant felt like a fish out of water.
- I was a fish out of water at the welding workshop until the instructor paired me with a patient mentor.
- Put a marathon runner in a chess grandmaster's chair and you will see a fish out of water.