Word.ws English Dictionary

had other fish to fry

had other fish to fry is the simple past and past participle of have other fish to fry.

Meaning of have other fish to fry

Verb

have other fish to fry (third-person singular simple present has other fish to fry, present participle having other fish to fry, simple past and past participle had other fish to fry)

  1. (idiomatic) To have more important things to do.
    • I have other fish to fry; so good-morrow, my ladies all, good-morrow.c. 1710, The Journal to Stella, Jonathan Swift, ch. 2, Letter 15

Questions about had other fish to fry

What is had other fish to fry the simple past and past participle of?
Had other fish to fry is the simple past and past participle of have other fish to fry.

Words near had other fish to fry in the dictionary

  1. had one's whole life ahead of one
  2. had one's wig snatched
  3. had one's wits about one
  4. had one's work cut out
  5. had one's work cut out for one
  6. had other fish to fry
  7. had other ideas
  8. had ought
  9. had out
  10. had over
  11. had respect of persons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: had other fish to fry (page history and authors); have other fish to fry (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:

Cite this entry: “had other fish to fry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/had_other_fish_to_fry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.