Word.ws English Dictionary

fisking

fisking noun: a rebuttal to an article or blog made by quoting its content in sections and refuting each section individually. Also the present participle and gerund of fisk.

Noun

fisking (plural fiskings)

  1. A rebuttal to an article or blog made by quoting its content in sections and refuting each section individually.
    • By 2004 the word fisking had broken its tether from the topic of war and was being used to mean any detailed analysis of another's speech and writing.2004, Barbara O'Brien, Blogging America: Political Discourse in a Digital Nation, page 44
    • As Linda Seebach put it, fisking is "line by line exegesis of idiocy," named after "journalist Robert Fisk, who often deserves it." Fisking is now a widely practiced technique.2006, Peter Wood, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now, page 246

Also used as

fisking is also the present participle and gerund of fisk.

Forms of fisking

pluralfiskings

Origin of fisking

Named after English writer and journalist Robert Fisk (1946–2020). For the surname, see Fisk. Originated in the blogosphere.

Questions about fisking

What does fisking mean?
Fisking means a rebuttal to an article or blog made by quoting its content in sections and refuting each section individually.
What part of speech is fisking?
Fisking is a noun.
What is the plural of fisking?
The plural of fisking is fiskings.

Words near fisking in the dictionary

  1. Fisker
  2. Fiskerton
  3. Fiskerton cum Morton
  4. Fiskes
  5. Fiskian
  6. fisking
  7. fiskings
  8. fisks
  9. Fiskville
  10. fisnoga
  11. fisnomie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fisking (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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