fishwife

From Middle English fysshewyfe; equivalent to fish +‎ wife (“(obsolete) woman”) (see also midwife).

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fishwife (plural fishwives)

1. (archaic) A woman who sells or works with fish; a female fishmonger.
   • 1867, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “Cigarette en Bienfaitrice”, in Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 121:

     [S]he was angry with herself; and, for that, sang the more loudly the most wicked and risqué of her slang songs, that gave the morals of a Messalina in the language of a fish-wife, and yet had an inalienable, mischievous, contagious, dauntless French grace in it withal.

2. (derogatory) A vulgar, abusive or nagging woman with a loud, unpleasant voice.
3. (Geordie, derogatory) A person, especially a woman, with poor personal hygiene.
4. (LGBTQ, slang) The wife of a homosexual man.^[1]

• (woman who sells fish): fishmongeress (fishmongress), fishwoman, piscatrix (historical)
• (nagging woman): See Thesaurus:shrew

• (woman who sells fish): fishmonger
• (wife of a homosexual man): beard

• (woman who sells fish): fishman

• fishwifely

fish +‎ wife

fishwife (plural fishwifes)

1. fishwife
2. (derogatory) woman of coarse behaviour, temperament and vocabulary