Word.ws English Dictionary

kittenfishing

kittenfishing noun: the practice of presenting oneself in a more favorable or exaggerated light on dating apps or social media. Also the present participle and gerund of kittenfish.

Noun

kittenfishing (uncountable)

  1. (neologism, social media) The practice of presenting oneself in a more favorable or exaggerated light on dating apps or social media.
    • To be fair, I catfished using my own non-pregnant photos so perhaps kittenfishing would be more apt. MTV, feel free to call me to discuss the concept further.2018, Amy Nickell, Confessions of a Single Mum: What It's Like When You're Expecting The Unexpected, Headline Publishing Group, page 53
    • Unfortunately, while kittenfishing is generally considered less ‘serious’ a dating app offence as catfishing (where you pretend to be an entirely different person completely), it can still be damaging, and pretty manipulative; indeed, you will feel duped and deceived when going on a date with...2021 December 20, Rebecca Fearn, “Kittenfishing is the new dating trend doing the rounds, but what exactly is it? And are we guilty of doing it ourselves?”, in Glamour, archived from the original on...

Also used as

kittenfishing is also the present participle and gerund of kittenfish.

Origin of kittenfishing

Blend of kitten + catfishing. The word kitten is used because it is regarded as a less severe form of catfishing. Coined in an article by dating app Hinge published on June 21, 2017.

Questions about kittenfishing

What does kittenfishing mean?
Kittenfishing means the practice of presenting oneself in a more favorable or exaggerated light on dating apps or social media.
What part of speech is kittenfishing?
Kittenfishing is a noun.

Words near kittenfishing in the dictionary

  1. kittened
  2. kittenesque
  3. kittenfish
  4. kittenfished
  5. kittenfishes
  6. kittenfishing
  7. kittenhood
  8. kittening
  9. kittenings
  10. kittenish
  11. kittenishly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kittenfishing (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-kittenfishing.wav.

Cite this entry: “kittenfishing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kittenfishing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.