Word.ws English Dictionary

brokefishing

brokefishing noun: the practice of playing financially disadvantaged with the goal of having another party in an interpersonal relationship spend more money or provide a financial safety net or in order to attract immaterial benefits such as sympathy.

Noun

brokefishing (uncountable)

  1. (neologism, slang) The practice of playing financially disadvantaged with the goal of having another party in an interpersonal relationship spend more money or provide a financial safety net or in order to attract immaterial benefits such as sympathy.

Origin of brokefishing

Blend of broke + catfishing. Coined by Refinery 29 journalist Pema Bakshi in 2022. The economic environment is provided by the Wikipedia articles 2021–2023 inflation surge and cost-of-living crisis.

Questions about brokefishing

What does brokefishing mean?
Brokefishing means the practice of playing financially disadvantaged with the goal of having another party in an interpersonal relationship spend more money or provide a financial safety net or in order to attract immaterial benefits such as sympathy.
What part of speech is brokefishing?
Brokefishing is a noun.

Words near brokefishing in the dictionary

  1. broked
  2. brokedown
  3. brokefish
  4. brokefished
  5. brokefishes
  6. brokefishing
  7. Brokelona
  8. broken
  9. broken a butterfly on a wheel
  10. broken a butterfly on the wheel
  11. broken a butterfly upon a wheel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brokefishing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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