feist

• fist, fice

Earliest sense is “fart”, and later “stink” as abbreviation for fysting cur “stinking dog” (1520s). From Middle English fysten (mid-15th century), from Old English. Cognate with Middle Dutch veest and Dutch vijst. Possibly from Proto-Germanic *fistiz (“a fart”), presumably from Proto-Indo-European *pesd-, though this is disputed.^[1]

One explanation for the association of farting with small dogs is given in an 1811 slang dictionary, which suggests that the dogs were blamed for farting, specifically defining fice as “a small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged on their lap-dogs.”^[2]

Cognate terms include German Fist (“soft fart”), Danish fise (“to blow, to fart”) and Middle English askefise (“bellows”, literally “fire-blower, ash-blower”), from Old Norse; originally “a term of reproach among northern nations for an unwarlike fellow who stayed at home in the chimney corner”.^[3]

• IPA^(key): /faɪst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪst

feist (countable and uncountable, plural feists)

1. (US, countable) A small, snappy, belligerent mixed-breed dog; a feist dog.
2. (uncountable) Feisty behavior.
   • 1985, Weekly World News, volume 6, number 36:

     Sultry Joan Collins says she likes her men feisty and her beau Peter Holm is full of feist.

   • 2009, Cindy Causey, A Different Drum:

     She looked at him, all eagerness and trust, full of feist and fun, unlike any woman he'd met before. After only a few hours, he felt as if he'd known her forever.

3. (vulgar) Silent (but pungent) flatulence.

   Synonym: SBD

The term feist is uncommon, but the derived term feisty is common.

• feisty

• Feits, Fites, Stief, fetis

• IPA^(key): /faɪ̯st/

• Audio:

  (file)

From Middle High German veizet, from Old High German feizzit, from Proto-West Germanic *faitid, whence also the doublet fett (through Middle Low German).

feist (strong nominative masculine singular feister, comparative feister, superlative am feistesten)

1. (derogatory, now chiefly literary) fat (usually of a person)
   • 1906, Hermann Hesse, Unterm Rad [Beneath the Wheel]‎^[1], Berlin: S. Fischer:

     Und das Lichterspiel auf dem Fluß, das sanfte Schwanken der langen Angelrute, die Aufregung beim Anbeißen und Ziehen und die eigentümliche Freude, wenn man einen kühlen, feisten, schwänzelnden Fisch in der Hand hielt!

     And the light playing on the river, the soft swaying of the long fishing rod, the flurry of biting and pulling and the particular joy when one grips a cool, fat, wriggling fish in one's hand.

• Feist typically adds a negative moral judgment to the description, implying gluttony, laziness, and/or unrightful wealth. For example, ein feister Kapitalist (“a fat capitalist”).

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

feist

1. second-person singular present of feien

• “feist” in Duden online
• “feist” in Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, 16 vols., Leipzig 1854–1961.
• “feist” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache