phish

verb

ˈfish 

phished; phishing; phishes

transitive verb

: to trick (an Internet user) into revealing personal or confidential information which can then be used illicitly

Scam artists use fake websites to corrupt your computer and phish for your personal information.

—Cathy Williamson

"Typically how it happens is somebody would break into a crypto exchange, like Coinbase, for example," [Alan Mislove, professor of computer science at Northeastern] says. "But another common way is that the hacker would attempt to phish users to trick them into giving up their password."

—Tanner Stening

also : to acquire (an Internet user's personal or confidential information) through trickery (such as the use of deceptive email messages or websites)

… cold calling is … a way scammers can phish information from consumers.

—L'Observateur (LaPlace, Louisiana)

Examples of phish in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Investigators have since arrested at least three members of Scattered Spider, a group known to be made up of native English-language speakers who excel at social engineering tactics, including impersonating customer support to phish company employees. —Senior Reporter, PC Magazine, 29 Sep. 2025

And as long as attackers can still phish or steal a user’s password, much of the benefit of passkeys is undermined. —Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 28 Aug. 2025

When available, passkeys (face/fingerprint + device) beat passwords because there’s nothing useful for criminals to steal or phish. —Michael Cannivet, Forbes.com, 21 Aug. 2025

These accounts may also be bots programmed to phish for details or direct you to scam pages. —Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 18 June 2025

These links are designed to phish for personal information, distribute malware, or trick recipients into financial scams. —Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 12 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

respelling of fish entry 2, probably after phreaker and phreaking

First Known Use

1996, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for phish

• dish
• lish
• swish
• wish
• bluefish
• catfish
• codfish
• crawfish
• dogfish
• finfish
• flatfish
• goldfish