Italian idioms with fish

In this lesson, you’ll learn the most common and interesting Italian idioms with fish.

Let’s start!

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Italian idioms with fish

There are many Italian idioms featuring fish. Let’s take a look at them.

Buttarsi a pesce

The first we’re going to see translates to to grab an opportunity by the horns.

You can use buttarsi a pesce when you dive with enthusiasm into something, be it a pasta dish or the latest bestseller!

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Essere muto come un pesce

Fish don’t speak, everyone knows that. That’s why this idiom has a direct translation into English: To be as mute as a fish.

Vittorio non ha detto una parola sull’incidente. È muto come un pesce.
Vittorio didn’t say a word about the accident. He’s as mute as a fish.

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Chi dorme non piglia pesci

Imagine this scenario: you are a fisher (pescare means to fish). You happen to nod off as soon as a big fish tugs at your bait. The fish is strong enough to pull the cane out of your sleeping hands and then sinks into the water, never to return.

He who sleeps doesn’t catch fish. And loses their cane.

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Sentirsi un pesce fuor d’acqua

This translates as to feel like a fish out of water.

Sentirsi literally translates to to feel oneself.

Mi sentivo come un pesce fuor d’acqua alla festa.
I felt like a fish out of water at the party.

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Il pesce puzza dalla testa

This is a very old idiom, but its teaching may very well be applied to our modern age.

It’s the Italian version of A fish rots from the head down, meaning that leaders of an organization or a country will end up corrupting the whole country. The root cause of corruption and evildoing is always at the top.

Puzzare means to stink.

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L’ospite è come il pesce: dopo tre giorni puzza

Fish rots quickly. Let’s say that it rots in three days.

That can also be said about a guest in your house, un ospite a casa tua. Guests who stay too long by your house can be annoying and wear out your welcome. That’s what this Italian idiom is about.

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Prendere a pesci in faccia

If someone hits your face with fish in Italian, it means they are being rude to you.

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Il pesce grande mangia il piccolo

We all live in a survival-of-the-fittest kind of world where big and important people will always have the edge over small, lesser-known people.

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Fare il pesce in barile

Take a barrel, a barile. Fill it with water, acqua. Put a fish in it. Look at the fish swim, nuotare. Can the fish see anything of what’s happening outside its barrel? No, it can’t.

This Italian idiom is for those who pretend not to understand or know what’s going on about them even after the evidence is clear, just like a fish in a barrel who is blind about the world.

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What next?

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