# fish out of water

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. A person in unfamiliar and often uncomfortable surroundings.

## Etymology
* Earliest recorded uses: "fish out of the water" (1585, Lamentable Complaint of Commonality), "Fishes out of the Water" (1613, Samuel Purchas, Pilgrimage).
* Earliest use of metaphor by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales: Prologue (c. 1405) as "fissh þᵗ is waterlees".
Compare also the antonymous French comme un poisson dans l'eau, German wie ein Fisch im Wasser.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/fish-out-of-water