# fish out of water

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/fish-out-of-water
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

A person in unfamiliar and often uncomfortable surroundings.

## Examples

- At the fancy party, I felt like a fish out of water.
- You look like a fish out of water in that kitchen.
- She feels like a fish out of water at the new gym.
- Being a country boy in the big city, he often felt like a fish out of water.
- When the athlete tried to join the quiet book club, he felt like a fish out of water among the scholars.
- The experienced mechanic felt like a fish out of water when he had to work in the modern software office.
- Thrown into the corporate world after years of teaching, she wandered through the glass-walled offices like a fish out of water, unsure how to speak or dress.

## Origin

* 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.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.