neither fish nor fowl
adjEtymology
Possibly a variant of neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, itself a variant of neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring which is attested from the 16th century. According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1895), the latter term referred to three types of food generally consumed by the different classes in society: fish by the clergy, flesh by the common people, and red herring by the poor. Thus if something was neither fish, flesh, nor red herring, it was good for no one.
Definitions
Not easily categorized
Not easily categorized; not rightly belonging or fitting well in a given group or situation; also, not having the advantages of the various options.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for neither fish nor fowl. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA