Word.ws English Dictionary

sleeping with the fishes

sleeping with the fishes is the present participle and gerund of sleep with the fishes.

Meaning of sleep with the fishes

Verb

sleep with the fishes (third-person singular simple present sleeps with the fishes, present participle sleeping with the fishes, simple past and past participle slept with the fishes)

  1. (idiomatic) To be dead, with one's corpse disposed of in a body of water.
    • The porter […] opened his sack, and pitched the corpse into the river, and ran back to receive the rest of his pay “ It is done,” said he, laughing ; “ Your man sleeps with the fishes of the Tigris by this time […]”1833 March, “The Three Humpbacks ; or, the Bridge of Bagdad”, in The Lady's Magazine and Museum, page 105

Questions about sleeping with the fishes

What is sleeping with the fishes the present participle and gerund of?
Sleeping with the fishes is the present participle and gerund of sleep with the fishes.

Words near sleeping with the fishes in the dictionary

  1. sleeping tablets
  2. sleeping together
  3. sleeping with
  4. sleeping with one eye open
  5. sleeping with one's fathers
  6. sleeping with the fishes
  7. sleepingly
  8. sleepings
  9. sleepingwear
  10. sleepiphany
  11. sleepish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleeping with the fishes (page history and authors); sleep with the fishes (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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