Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Full of spirit or determination; plucky or spunky.
  • adjective Quarrelsome or aggressive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as fusty.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Tenacious, energetic, spunky.
  • adjective Belligerent; prepared to stand and fight, especially in spite of relatively small stature or some other disadvantage.
  • adjective Easily offended and ready to bicker.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective quick to take offense
  • adjective showing courage

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From feist.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1896, American, feist (“small, aggressive dog”) +‎ -y; the term feist (now rare) itself originally meant “stink”, and earlier “fart”, from Middle English, from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, presumably from Proto-Indo-European – see feist for details.

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Examples

Comments

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  • More gold from etymonline.com:

    "The 1811 slang dictionary defines fice as "a small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged on their lap-dogs." Compare also Danish fise "to blow, to fart," and obsolete English aske-fise, "fire-tender," literally "ash-blower" (early 15c.), from an unrecorded Norse source, used in Middle English for a kind of bellows, but originally "a term of reproach among northern nations for an unwarlike fellow who stayed at home in the chimney corner" OED."

    July 12, 2021

  • Best read in conjunction with base etymology above.

    July 12, 2021