Word.ws English Dictionary

fish bowls

fish bowls is the plural of fish bowl.

Meaning of fish bowl

Noun

fish bowl (plural fish bowls)

  1. A small, rounded, transparent, and domestic aquarium.
    • We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl / Year after year1975 September 12, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, “Wish You Were Here”, in Wish You Were Here, performed by Pink Floyd
    Synonyms:
    goldfish bowl
  2. (broadly, figuratively) Any place or event that lacks privacy or is intensely scrutinized.
    Synonyms:
    goldfish bowl
  3. (figuratively) A variety of discussions where participants are organized in concentric circles and take turns where they and others in the same group are allowed to speak according to a set of rules.
    • John Hinkle, Outreach Consultant, observing a fishbowl conversation.1969, Oklahoma Librarian, volume 19, Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Library Association
  4. (figuratively) The central and smallest circle where the speakers are located in some versions of such a discussion.

Questions about fish bowls

What is fish bowls the plural of?
Fish bowls is the plural of fish bowl.

Words near fish bowls in the dictionary

  1. fish belly girder
  2. fish belly girders
  3. fish boil
  4. fish boils
  5. fish bowl
  6. fish bowls
  7. fish cage
  8. fish cages
  9. fish cake
  10. fish cakes
  11. fish camp

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fish bowls (page history and authors); fish bowl (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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Cite this entry: “fish bowls.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fish_bowls. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.