Meaning & Analysis
Someone is completely silent, like a fish, which is believed to make no sound.
Insights
Absolute Silence
The proverb is used to describe someone who is completely silent or uncommunicative, emphasizing a total lack of response or utterance.
Deliberate Withholding
It can suggest purposeful silence—someone who is intentionally withholding speech or information, often in response to a question or accusation.
Historical Belief
Based on the traditional (if scientifically inaccurate) belief that fish make no sound, the phrase became an emblem of unbreakable silence in Western folklore and proverbial language.
Literary Tradition
The expression has deep roots, cited by Erasmus and found in early modern literature, often to contrast with more vocal characters or to describe moments of awkward or strategic quiet.
Social Use
Calling someone ‘as mute as a fish’ may be mildly reproachful, humorous, or admiring, depending on the context—sometimes suggesting shyness, discretion, or stubborn refusal to speak.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
Directly compares a person’s silence to that of a fish, using a clear and relatable image.
Hyperbole
Exaggerates the concept of silence for rhetorical effect, reinforcing the impression of absolute muteness.
Allusion
Echoes classical sources (such as Erasmus) and centuries of proverbial tradition, enriching its resonance.
Transcription
Quotations
Magis mutus quam pisces.
*A Prouerbe . . taken from fishes which vtter no sound at all.
Lest the company, should haue ben fyred with too hasty a desyre of marriage he cooled their affections with such caueats, as they .. were of the suddayne, as mute as a fishe.
What, mute? —I, as fishes i'faith.
On a suddaine, these sonnes of thunder are as mute as fishes.
As dumb as a Fish: Because no creature but can make some kind of noyse or sound, but onely the Fish, that is solely mute.
Dumme like a Fish.
And I should be as dumbe as a fish.
A Fish cannot be more silent than I.
To be more mute than a fish.
They are as mute as a fish; dumb; they give never a word.
You are all hush't, and as mute as a Fish.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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