Entry · catalog no. 1059
fishy
/ /
adjective · northeast ·
✓ Verified
1.
In ballroom: presenting a femininity so complete it reads as unremarkable — the highest compliment in the Femme Queen Realness categories.
“She walked that category fishy, no notes.”
Origin & Attribution
Black and Latina queer and trans ballroom culture in New York, 1970s-80s. The word turns an intended insult — a crude reference to cisgender women's bodies — into an insider's praise, which is the oldest move in the vernacular. Paris Is Burning put the language in front of the world in 1990; a generation of televised drag then took it further from the houses that built it. The term is in-group and carries weight; outside the ballroom it lands differently and is contested even within the community.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
northeast ·
Spoken by
$FISHYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Jennie Livingston — Paris Is Burning — documentary film · 1990
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceMarlon M. Bailey — Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit — book · 2013
submitted
See also