Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See extract, and fise.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Southern U.S. A small dog; -- written also
fise ,fyce ,fiste , etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A small, snappy,
belligerent , mixed-breeddog .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a nervous belligerent little mongrel dog
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fice.
Examples
-
Besides inflicting upon my own excited imagination the belief that I made noise enough to be heard by the inmates of the house who were likely to be rising at the time, I had the misfortune to attract the notice of a little house-dog, such as we call in that part of the world a "fice," on account of its being not only the smallest species of the canine race, but also, because it is the most
-
"fice," on account of its being not only the smallest species of the canine race, but also, because it is the most saucy, noisy, and teasing of all dogs.
The Fugitive Blacksmith or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington James W. C. Pennington 1839
-
Your only claim can be that it is the best possible artifice for the perpetuation of life, or that it is the only perfect, all-sufficient, and all-satisfying arti - fice that man can devise.
-
He had a paunch that fell about twenty-fice centimeters over his belt.
Cheeseburger Gothic » Again, while we wait for the Geek… 2010
-
Thirty-fice years ago, my father took me to a movie, a cartoon.
Movies & Parliaments & CFCs, Oh My! « View From a Height 2009
-
Senate, Congress and every elected of fice in New York State government.
-
Already there was a stream of routine communications, as one Citizen contacted the of - fice of another about some trifle.
-
He says he trained his 'of fice girls' to provide physical therapy.
Confidentiality Cloaks Medicare Abuse Mark Schoofs 2010
-
For light eaters, three of these rolls would run you under $6 … fice would be under $10, and I could see five small rolls being a simple, somewhat filling lunch.
-
Most of us have heard him say about five paragraphs last Tuesday night, and most of those fice paragraphs made sense.
Liberal Hero Ron Paul: Blacks Commit Crimes, Zionists Silence The Opposition 2009
madmouth commented on the word fice
is anyone else imagining a half-crazed Englishman hissing about his 'nervous belligerent little mongrel dog'? what a turn of phrase!
September 17, 2009
Gammerstang commented on the word fice
(noun) - An obsolete English word still used in Kentucky and the South for a small dog or cur, sometimes spelt phyce. The word is perhaps one of the most interesting cases of survival presented by American philology. It is evidently the last small remnant of the old English "foisting cur," quoted as "foisting hound" in Wright's Provincial Dialects 1857. Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors 1859 gives nearly the whole process of gradual corruption: "foisting, foisty, foist, fyst, fyce," and Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words 1855 describes the "foisting-hound" as "a kind of lap-dog," so called from its bad habits, which often have to serve as an excuse for the sins of the owner. A "fisting hound" also is mentioned as a kind of spaniel in Harrison's Description of England 1587. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
April 22, 2018