Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Chiefly Southern U.S. A small mongrel dog.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Same as fist.
Wiktionary
- n. a small snappy belligerent mixed-breed dog
- n. A silent fart (flatus)
WordNet 3.0
- n. a nervous belligerent little mongrel dog
Etymologies
- Variant of obsolete fist, short for fisting dog, from Middle English fisting, a blowing, breaking wind, from Old English fīsting; see pezd- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“I definitely know the difference between some one's coon dog, bird dog, even a feist squirrel dog and a feral dog, and have recovered and returned many of the above.”
“Radical Comics radio city ragnarok rain village raistlin raistlin majere rand al'thor randall munroe random house ransom riggs rant rant time raptor ray bradbury ray lilly raymond e. feist read an ebook read an rpg book in public week reading reading list readings real dogs real literature rebecca keegan reboot recommendations recorded attacks red red panzer red sonja red string red wolf conspiracy”
A Princess of Landover Cover - Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, and Games
“When The Player was in his prime, he could be as full of feist as Cagney grapefruiting a mouthy dame, as charming as Tracy sparring with Hepburn, as folksy as Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, takin 'on the scalawags and stickin' up for the little guy, see?”
“The ruling coalition has already prepared a charge sheet against the outgoing dictator who ruled the country for 9 years with an iron feist.”
“At 2007-11-05 on 6: 45 p.m. oh sweet jesus i hope i've improved. feist on friday.”
“Molly Vardant, in goodbroomirish, arrah, this place is a proper and his feist a ferial for curdnal communial, so be who would celibrate the holy mystery upon or that the pirigrim from Mainy-lands beatend, the calmleaved hutcaged by that look whose glaum is sure he means bisnisgels to empalmover.”
“One was a stocky red-faced man of about the age of the Captain; the other was a tiny feist of a fellow with a pocked face and a big pistol strapped to his leg.”
Lonesome Dove
“Fesser: Fässer, casks. feyss: feist, fat. ff: Pfunde, pounds: 252 ff.”
“Call that damned feist back, I tell ye," he shouted at last.”
“[253] Je croy qu'il ne feist en sa vie ceremonie qui luy touchast si prés du coeur, ne dont je pense qu'il luy doive advenir moins du bien.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘feist’.
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metaphoric references to dogs
As an ongoing part of my project, Dogs in Metaphor and Idiom, Illustrated, (www.metaphordogs.org) I am continually adding terms. If you know a term that fi...
dog, alpha male, at bay, bark, bird dog, bitch, bitchin, bloodhound, bulldog, canaille, canines, cerberus and 130 more...
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Insults that the insulted must look up in a dic...
fustilugs, harridan, hircismus, caprylic, hircine, capric, fussock, feist, cacafuego
hernesheir Breaking wind in a suppressed manner. --Dr. Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary and Supplement, 1841. Jun 25, 2011
amacleod03 A person or animal that is irascible, touchy, thin-skinned, or bad-tempered. Alternatively, a person of little worth.
When you look at the etymology of the term, the story takes a twist. Feist or fice or fyst originates from the Anglo-Saxon word fistan, which means to fart. Despite one suggestion that the name was applied to the hunting dogs because they “run as if breaking the wind�? (whatever that might mean) there is a much more likely possibility. The small dogs were originally referred to as a fysting curres or “stinking curs.�?
Davis, Donald, and Jeffrey Stotik. 1992. Feist or Fiction? The Squirrel Dog of the Southern Mountains. Journal of Popular Culture 26 (3):193-301.
Jul 10, 2009
thedayhascome /FEIST/ n · A silent fart. Aug 7, 2008