fisherman

plural fishermen

1. A fisher, a person engaged in fishing:
   1. Any person who attempts to catch fish.

      The fisherman casts her line.

      1 more example

      Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house ; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something ; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.

      1922, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

   2. A person whose profession is catching fish.

      He is a fisherman, out on a trawler for days at a time.

      4 more examples

      I knovv God by Miracle can inſtruct Kings, as he rained Mannah, and raiſed the Apoſtles from letterless Fiſher-men, to learned Metropolitans, and profound Doctours.

      1663, Edward Waterhous[e], chapter I, in Fortescutus Illustratus; or A Commentary on that Nervous Treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, Written by Sir John Fortescue Knight, […], London: […] Tho[mas] Roycroft for Thomas Dicas […], →OCLC, page 38

      The fisherman threatened to tell the captain if we did not pay for the boat, and between us we had to dub up twenty-five dollars.

      1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 64

      Alienated from the clique society, / A lonely boy finds peace in fishing. / His mother says John this is not the way life's supposed to be. / Don't you see the life that you are missing? / And he says / When I grow up I want to be, / One of the harvesters of the sea. / I think before my days are done, / I want to be a fisherman.

      1989, “John the Fisherman”, performed by Primus

      "The attraction is understandable. For the individual fisherman trying to pay off the boat or put his kid through school, and facing Draconian rules to reduce pressure on over-exploited stocks, this is a wide-open area. It's a place to go and use your wits and knowledge to try to make a living, which is what fishermen have been doing for centuries."

      1995 December 26, William J. Broad, “Creatures of the Deep Find Their Way to the Table”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 May 2015

2. A vessel (boat or ship) used for fishing.

   Such boats should not have been fast, but the better fishermen — particularly John Alden's designs - […] won a big share of the offshore and coastwise races

   1987, John Rousmaniere, Cruising Club of America. Technical Committee, Desirable and Undesirable Characteristics of Offshore Yachts, page 26

   1 more example

   They tortured and put to death English factors in the Spice Islands; they descended upon the fisheries of the North Sea in huge fleets escorted by men-of-war that attacked and sank the fishermen of other nations

   1938, Cecil Ernest Lucas Phillips, Cromwell's Captains, page 196