fishwife

Definition

A woman who sells or works with fish; a female fishmonger.

Etymology

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

Example Sentences

• "[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."