Word.ws English Dictionary

fish or cut bait

fish or cut bait verb: to make a decision, especially after a period of delay; to either take action now or forgo the opportunity.

Verb

fish or cut bait (third-person singular simple present fishes or cuts bait, present participle fishing or cutting bait, simple past and past participle fished or cut bait)

  1. (idiomatic) To make a decision, especially after a period of delay; to either take action now or forgo the opportunity.
    • It's time to fish or cut bait: either we buy this house now, or we must start looking for another one.
    • The admiral . . . may stay in the bay and keep approaches to the city of Manila tightly closed for a long time to come, until perhaps some demand from the governments of Europe that the United States fish or cut bait comes in such shape that it must be heeded.1898 May 18, “Merritt's Request for More Men”, in The Day, USA, retrieved 15 Jan 2012, page 4

Synonyms of fish or cut bait

Forms of fish or cut bait

third-person singular presentfishes or cuts bait
present participlefishing or cutting bait
past participlefished or cut bait
pastfished or cut bait

Questions about fish or cut bait

What does fish or cut bait mean?
Fish or cut bait means to make a decision, especially after a period of delay; to either take action now or forgo the opportunity.
What part of speech is fish or cut bait?
Fish or cut bait is a verb.
What is the past tense of fish or cut bait?
The past tense of fish or cut bait is fished or cut bait.

Words near fish or cut bait in the dictionary

  1. fish moons
  2. fish odor syndrome
  3. fish oil
  4. fish oils
  5. fish one's wish
  6. fish or cut bait
  7. fish out
  8. fish out of water
  9. fish owl
  10. fish owls
  11. fish paper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fish or cut bait (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-fish or cut bait.ogg.

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