Meanings
plural fish-and-chippies · alternative fish and chippy · alternative fish and chippie
- informalA shop that sells fish and chips.
There is still no fishmonger, although there is a fish-and-chippy.
1993, Giles Gordon, Aren’t We Due a Royalty Statement? A Stern Account of Literary, Publishing, and Theatrical Folk, Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 3423 more examples
The trattoria was becoming popular and was edging out the ‘greasy spoon’ and even the fish-and-chippy.
1997, Nigel Grant, “Intercultural education in the United Kingdom”, in Derek Woodrow, Gajendra K. Verma, Maria Beatriz Rocha-Trindade, Giovanna Campani, Christopher Bagley, editors, Intercultural Education: Theories, Policies and Practices, Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, page 140In 1993–94, I lived in the picturesque southern English town of Canterbury, Kent, in a very small apartment above a health-food shop and a “fish-and-chippy.”
1999, Eve Darian-Smith, “Preface”, in Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, page xv‘That will happen wherever I go, because most of the chefs around here couldn’t tell the difference between a brûlée and a blowfly.’ / ‘But you won’t be working anywhere else. You’ll be on garden leave. Unless you fancy opening a fish-and-chippy in Ulladulla?’ Jim offers.
2016, J.D. Barrett, The Secret Recipe for Second Chances, Hachette Australia, →ISBNSynonyms: chipper, chippy, chip shop, fish-and-chipper, fish and chippery
comparative more fish-and-chippy · superlative most fish-and-chippy · alternative fish and chippy · alternative fish and chippie
- Resembling or characteristic of fish and chips.
Everything’s so stale and orange-peely and fish-and-chippy!
1946, Dorothy Macardle, Fantastic Summer, London: Peter Davies, page 375 more examples
Spouting hot oil, and with the fish-and-chippy odour characteristic of internal combustion when it goes external with a bang, the blue E.R.A. drew over and nuzzled in close to the hedge, yielding precedence to the works three-speeder, which thereafter had the race in the basket, going on to win at a decimal under 91 m.p.h. from the four-cylinder Maseratis of Bianco and Sofietti.
1944, Autocar, volume 89, page 266[…] 25 minutes went by before the cruelly overheated engine was clearly visible through the fish-and-chippy miasma rising off it.
1958, Sports Cars Illustrated, volume 4, page 45As he packed, the hearty fish-and-chippy smell of Swansea was coming on the evening wind over the sea, and the sound of the Mumbles train loudening coming back to the Pierhead.
1970, John Summers, Dylan, New English Library, →ISBN, page 26I was sure the Brits had their share of murderers. It was just a matter of finding the right one. Or, if I was lucky, one that tasted good. Without the fish-and-chippy smell. Sorry, that was a stereotype.
2019, Arthur Slade, Amber Fang: Betrayal, Orca Book Publishers, →ISBNI quickly tuck in to some chips, then try a crispy ring. It’s good. It’s very good. Sort of half chickeny and half fish-and-chippy.
2021, Charlie Higson, Worst. Holiday. Ever., Puffin Books, →ISBN
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA shop that sells fish and chips.
Origin
Cite this entry
fish-and-chippy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fish-and-chippy
“fish-and-chippy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fish-and-chippy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fish-and-chippy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fish-and-chippy.
Source: fish-and-chippy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.