fish to fry

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

have other more important things to deal with

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

có việc quan trọng hơn để giải quyết

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: cooking fish
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

I don't have time for that, I have other fish to fry

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “fish to fry” mean?

have other more important things to deal with Literally: cooking fish

Is “fish to fry” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.