While small-scale and artisanal fisheries are undeniably important globally, there is no global consensus on how to define the sectors, hindering comparative studies and international agreements. We focused on the usage of the words in both the scientific literature and legal documents and show that the confusion stems from a misuse of the terms artisanal, small-scale, coastal and subsistence, and is further propagated by language barriers. Accepting the complexity and subtleties of each term, we developed a simple method based on rhetoric and within a transdisciplinary background, which allows the ‘level’ of artisanal fisheries between nations to be parameterised and compared.