feisty
pronunciation
How to pronounce feisty in British English:
UK [ˈfaɪsti]
How to pronounce feisty in American English:
US [ˈfaɪsti]
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- Adjective:
- showing courage
- irritable and looking for trouble
Word Origin
- feisty
- feisty: [19] Feisty, nowadays a colloquial Americanism for ‘quarrelsome’ or ‘spirited’, originated in Middle English as a term for a ‘farting dog’. It goes back to the now obsolete English verb fist ‘fart’, which came ultimately from Indo-European *pezd- (source also of Latin pēdere ‘break wind’, whence English petard ‘small bomb’ [16], as in ‘hoist with one’s own petard’); like *perd-, the Indo-European ancestor of English fart, this was probably of imitative origin.In the 16th and 17th centuries the expression fisting dog, literally ‘farting dog’, was applied contemptuously to a ‘mongrel’ or ‘cur’. This eventually became shortened to feist, and (mongrels being notoriously combative) feisty was born.=> fizzle, petard
- feisty (adj.)
- 1896, "aggressive, exuberant, touchy," American English, with -y (2) + feist "small dog," earlier fice, fist (American English, 1805); short for fysting curre "stinking cur," attested from 1520s, with present participle of now-obsolete Middle English fysten, fisten "break wind" (mid-15c.), from Proto-Germanic *fistiz "a fart," said to be from PIE *pezd- (see fart), but there are difficulties. 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].
Example
- 1. Marcia langton , a feisty aboriginal activist , describes them all as being " trapped in a vast aboriginal reality show " .
- 2. Mr lin will need all his diplomatic skills to keep peace inwukanbetweenthe feisty younger generation and the local communist party .
- 3. This attitude , combined with geographical isolation from the capital , explains the region 's feisty and independent politics .
- 4. Trying to be feisty but get people to say this isn 't all just a matter of getting congress to pass some laws .
- 5. By january 2010 , austin and a feisty crop of paid organizers had knocked on some 4000 doors , mobilized parents , bused them to sacramento and into state legislator offices to tell their stories , and managed to get the idea cemented into law .