Meanings
plural fishscales · alternative fish-scale
- slanguncountableCocaine, usually of high quality, taken directly off the brick and uncut.
The kids out here don't know a flake from a fish—if you asked them what fishscale is, they wouldn't know. [Fishscale is high-grade cocaine powder with few rock-like chunks.]
1989, Terry Williams, chapter 2, in The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring, page 412 more examples
Oh shit, it was Fishscale! It was love at first sight. He nearly fell back in his chair. "No mothafuckin' way!" he yelled. He jumped up and danced a little two-step jig and thanked his lucky stars for the come-up. Fishscale cocaine! It was fucking Fishscale!
2011, Boston George, Caroline McGill, Soft: Cocaine Love Stories, unnumbered page"You can get anything on here—isn't it incredible?" Slick Guy continues. "I couldn't believe it, either. I mean anything. MDMA from Holland, high-end weed, fish-scale coke, whatever.
2015, Duane Swierczynski, Canary, unnumbered page
Origin
From fish + scale. The use for sense 2 is from its appearance as shiny yellowish flakes resembling the scales of a fish, as opposed to dull white powder.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
fishscale. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fishscale
“fishscale.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fishscale. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fishscale,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fishscale.
Source: fishscale on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.