Meaning
To try to elicit praise from others indirectly, typically by making self-critical or falsely modest remarks in the hope that listeners will contradict them. The expression is mildly to firmly disapproving and is most common in the progressive form. Informal to conversational and mildly disapproving; standard in the progressive form 'fishing for compliments'. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression rests on an old figurative sense of 'fish': to try to obtain something indirectly or by artifice, as when one fishes for information. Etymonline records figurative use of 'fishing' from the 1540s. The earliest printed record of the exact phrase that is commonly cited is a letter of 16 March 1754 to the poet William Shenstone, printed in the 1778 collection Select Letters: 'I do not fish for a Compliment, when I say, I have many dark Spots...' The image is the angler's: the speaker casts a baited remark - usually a self-critical one - and waits for the compliment to bite. Documented history beyond this is thin, and the phrase seems to have become common only in the 19th century, so the mid-18th-century letter is best treated as the earliest known example rather than the moment of coinage.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- fish for a compliment
- fish for flattery
- fish for praise
- fishing for compliments
- go fishing for compliments
Usage Examples
- When she sighed that the cake was 'probably a disaster', everyone knew she was fishing for compliments.
- He denied fishing for compliments, but he did mention his marathon time three times during lunch.
- Posting the photo with the caption 'excuse the mess' was, her brother joked, just fishing for compliments.