Fishing refers to the act of catching fish. It commonly describes the act of catching other forms of seafood, separately or together with fish, commercial fishing: the business or industry of catching fish and other seafood for sale, and a fishery, a place for catching fish, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to to hunt fish or other aquatic animals, to search (a body of water) for something other than fish, and to use as bait when fishing, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Fishing as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Additional shades of meaning include to (attempt to) find or get hold of an object by searching among other objects, of a batsman, to attempt to hit a ball outside off stump and miss it, 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), and to hoist the flukes of, which reinforce how the category can stretch across adjacent but still recognizable uses of the same term.
