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In some parts of the southern United States, the word feist (pronounced to rhyme with heist) has been used since the 18th century as a term for a small dog used in hunting more diminutive game animals (such as squirrels). The word comes from the much older, now obsolete word fisting (pronounced as “feisting” would be) meaning “breaking wind,” which was used scornfully in the 16th and 17th centuries to describe gassy pooches. Feisty developed in the late 19th century, its flatulent origin lost, but its small-dog association still visible with a squint: the term conveys the spunk and determination that one may associate with a dog that manages to make its presence known, through its bark or its bite—or perhaps even its indifference to olfactory decorum—despite its small size.
Examples of feisty in a Sentence
Wynonna Judd, quoted in Rolling Stone, 8-22 July 1993
Humorist Cynthia Heimel never plays it safe, bless her feisty little heart. She's outrageous and hilarious, daring to say exactly what she and millions of other women really think …
—Donna Seaman, Booklist, 15 May 1993
… Milwaukee was the last major industrial city to elect a Socialist mayor—Frank P. Zeidler, a feisty octogenarian who teaches today at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee …
—Charles P. Pierce, Village Voice, 10 Mar. 1992
She never tired of hearing anecdotes from her childhood, and she particularly liked to hear how feisty she had been …
—Lorene Cary, Black Ice, 1991
The novel features a feisty heroine.
Even her opponents admire her feisty spirit.
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Mar. 2025
Flinty and feisty and sharp and attractive aromas of both green grass and pineapples.
—Tom Mullen, Forbes, 2 Mar. 2025
This tiny miracle pill is easy to get your feisty cat to swallow and offers almost immediate relief to a multitude of allergy symptoms.
—Bestreviews, Chicago Tribune, 26 Feb. 2025
The Sharks opened the game’s scoring in a sometimes feisty first period.
—Curtis Pashelka, The Mercury News, 24 Feb. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Feisty.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feisty. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.
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