Duck vs. Fish — What's the Difference?

A waterbird with a broad blunt bill, short legs, webbed feet, and a waddling gait.

Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups.

Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are also members of the same family.

A limbless cold-blooded vertebrate animal with gills and fins living wholly in water

A pure white thin-shelled bivalve mollusc found off the Atlantic coasts of America.

A person who is strange in a specified way

An amphibious transport vehicle

A flat plate that is fixed on a beam or across a joint in order to give additional strength.

A quick lowering of the head.

Catch or try to catch fish, typically by using a net or hook and line

Dear; darling (used as an informal or affectionate form of address, especially among cockneys)

Search by groping or feeling for something concealed

A strong linen or cotton fabric, used chiefly for work clothes and sails

Mend or strengthen with a fish.

A batsman's score of nought

Join (rails in a railway track) with a fishplate.

Lower the head or the body quickly to avoid a blow or missile or so as not to be seen

Any of numerous cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates characteristically having fins, gills, and a streamlined body and including the bony fishes, such as catfishes and tunas, and the cartilaginous fishes, such as sharks and rays.

Push or plunge (someone) under water, either playfully or as a punishment

Any of various jawless aquatic craniates, including the lampreys and hagfishes.

Refrain from playing a winning card on a particular trick for tactical reasons

The flesh of such animals used as food.

Any of various wild or domesticated waterbirds of the family Anatidae, characteristically having a broad flat bill, short legs, and webbed feet.

(Informal) A person, especially one considered deficient in something

A female duck.

To catch or try to catch fish.

The flesh of a duck used as food.

To look for something by feeling one's way; grope

(Slang) A person, especially one thought of as peculiar.

To seek something in a sly or indirect way

Often ducks (used with a sing. verb) Chiefly British A dear.

To catch or try to catch (fish).

A quick lowering of the head or body.

To catch or try to catch fish in

A plunge under water.

To catch or pull as if fishing

A durable, closely woven heavy cotton or linen fabric.

(countable) A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.

Ducks Clothing made of duck, especially white pants.

Any animal (or any vertebrate) that lives exclusively in water.

An amphibious military truck used during World War II.

(Newfoundland) Cod; codfish.

A similar vehicle used for civilian purposes, as to evacuate flood victims or for sightseeing tours. In both senses also called DUKW.

(uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.

To lower quickly, especially so as to avoid something

(uncountable) A card game in which the object is to obtain cards in pairs or sets of four (depending on the variation), by asking the other players for cards of a particular rank.

To evade; dodge

A woman.

To push (a person, for example) suddenly under water.

An easy victim for swindling.

In bridge, to deliberately play a card that is lower than (an opponent's card).

A bad poker player. Compare shark (a good poker player).

To lower the head or body.

A makeshift overlapping longitudinal brace, originally shaped roughly like a fish, used to temporarily repair or extend a spar or mast of a ship.

To move swiftly, especially so as to escape being seen

(nautical) A purchase used to fish the anchor.

To submerge the head or body briefly in water.

A torpedo self-propelled explosive device.

To evade a responsibility or obligation. Often used with out

(zoology) A paraphyletic grouping of the following extant taxonomic groups:

In bridge, to lose a trick by deliberately playing lower than one's opponent.

Class Myxini, the hagfish (no vertebrae)

(intransitive) To quickly lower the head or body, often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.

Class Petromyzontida, the lampreys (no jaw)

(transitive) To quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.

Within infraphylum Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates (also including Tetrapoda))

(transitive) To lower (something) into water; to thrust or plunge under liquid and suddenly withdraw.

(cartomancy) The thirty-fourth Lenormand card.

(intransitive) To go under the surface of water and immediately reappear; to plunge one's head into water or other liquid.

(prison slang) A new (usually vulnerable) prisoner.

(intransitive) To bow.

A male homosexual; a gay man.

(transitive) To evade doing something.

A period of time spent fishing.

(transitive) To lower the volume of (a sound) so that other sounds in the mix can be heard more clearly.

An instance of seeking something.

(intransitive) To enter a place for a short moment.

(obsolete) A counter, used in various games.

(caving) A cave passage containing water with low, or no, airspace.

(intransitive) To hunt fish or other aquatic animals in a body of water.

An aquatic bird of the family Anatidae, having a flat bill and webbed feet.

(transitive) To search (a body of water) for something other than fish.

Specifically, an adult female duck; contrasted with drake and with duckling.

To use as bait when fishing.

(uncountable) The flesh of a duck used as food.

(intransitive) To (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects.

(cricket) A batsman's score of zero after getting out. (short for duck's egg, since the digit "0" is round like an egg.)

To talk to people in an attempt to get them to say something, or seek to obtain something by artifice.

(slang) A playing card with the rank of two.

Of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it.

A building intentionally constructed in the shape of an everyday object to which it is related.

To repair (a spar or mast) by fastening a beam or other long object (often called a fish) over the damaged part (see Noun above).

A marble to be shot at with another marble (the shooter) in children's games.

To hoist the flukes of.

(US) A cairn used to mark a trail.

A counter, used in various games.

One of the weights used to hold a spline in place for the purpose of drawing a curve.

A name loosely applied in popular usage to many animals of diverse characteristics, living in the water.

Synonym of lame duck

An oviparous, vertebrate animal usually having fins and a covering scales or plates. It breathes by means of gills, and lives almost entirely in the water. See Pisces.

(medicine) A long-necked medical urinal for men.

The twelfth sign of the zodiac; Pisces.

A faggot; a meatball made from offal.

The flesh of fish, used as food.

A tightly-woven cotton fabric used as sailcloth.

A purchase used to fish the anchor.

(in plural) Trousers made of such material.

To attempt to catch fish; to be employed in taking fish, by any means, as by angling or drawing a net.

A term of endearment; pet; darling.

To seek to obtain by artifice, or indirectly to seek to draw forth; as, to fish for compliments.

(Midlands) Dear, mate (informal way of addressing a friend or stranger).

To catch; to draw out or up; as, to fish up an anchor.

A pet; a darling.

To search by raking or sweeping.

A linen (or sometimes cotton) fabric, finer and lighter than canvas, - used for the lighter sails of vessels, the sacking of beds, and sometimes for men's clothing.

To try with a fishing rod; to catch fish in; as, to fish a stream.

The light clothes worn by sailors in hot climates.

Any of various mostly cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates usually having scales and breathing through gills;

Any bird of the subfamily Anatinæ, family Anatidæ.

The flesh of fish used as food;

A sudden inclination of the bead or dropping of the person, resembling the motion of a duck in water.

(astrology) a person who is born while the sun is in Pisces

To thrust or plunge under water or other liquid and suddenly withdraw.

The twelfth sign of the zodiac; the sun is in this sign from about February 19 to March 20

To plunge the head of under water, immediately withdrawing it; as, duck the boy.

Seek indirectly;

To bow; to bob down; to move quickly with a downward motion.

Catch or try to catch fish or shellfish;

To go under the surface of water and immediately reappear; to dive; to plunge the head in water or other liquid; to dip.

To drop the head or person suddenly; to bow.

Small wild or domesticated web-footed broad-billed swimming bird usually having a depressed body and short legs

(cricket) a score of nothing by a batsman

Flesh of a duck (domestic or wild)

A heavy cotton fabric of plain weave; used for clothing and tents

To move (the head or body) quickly downwards or away;

Submerge or plunge suddenly

Dip into a liquid;

Avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues);