• feist •
Printable Version Pronunciation: faist • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A small, scrappy dog with a snippy attitude.
Notes: Feisty people are often admired for their feistiness: they are a bit touchy and quarrelsome, with a quick temper but show pluck in the face of daunting odds. Often they are considered of smaller stature than others. Feisty means "like a feist", but what is a feist? We thought you might like to know before this word disappears forever. The last place feist was used was in the southern US, so the adjective represents a contribution from the South to the general English vocabulary.
In Play: There may still be old folks down South who use today's word like this, "I would sell my dog to Clara but I don't think a feist like him would get along with Clara's cats." But if people may be feisty, they may be metaphorical feists: "Ida Claire picked up a feist on steroids who picks fights with any male who looks at her twice."
Word History: 
This good word represents a variant spelling of fist, pronounced [fayst] just like feist, and is a reduction of a phrase fisting dog. This expression comes from Middle English fisting "breaking wind", inherited from the Old English fisting, with the same odoriferous meaning. The semantic trail apparently began pointing to a dog far too old to be feisty but expressed his spirit otherwise. The meaning changed rather radically over the years. At one point it was a disparaging name for a lady's lap dog but ended up referring to a small, spirited dog.
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