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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

feist.

A small, snappy, belligerent mixed-breed dog; a feist dog.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/faɪst/
  1. A small, snappy, belligerent mixed-breed dog; a feist dog.

    US · countable
  2. Feisty behavior.

    uncountable
  3. Silent (but pungent) flatulence.

    countable · uncountable · vulgar
Where this word comes from

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. 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.” 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”.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.