feisty

[fahy-stee]

See more synonyms for feisty on Thesaurus.com

adjective, feist·i·er, feist·i·est.

full of animation, energy, or courage; spirited; spunky; plucky: The champion is faced with a feisty challenger.
ill-tempered; pugnacious.
troublesome; difficult: feisty legal problems.

Origin of feisty

An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900; feist + -y¹

Related formsfeist·i·ly, adverbfeist·i·ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for feisty

bubbly, gritty, scrappy, spunky, excitable, gutsy, high-strung, fiery, courageous, lively, active, alive, difficult, enthusiastic, frisky, game, mettlesome, ornery, peppy, quarrelsome

Examples from the Web for feisty

Contemporary Examples of feisty

The feisty airline is the brainchild of entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, a Malaysian of Indian descent who also is a British citizen.
The Presumed Crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 Is Nothing Like MH370
Lennox Samuels
December 29, 2014
The House caucus appears to be far more populist, feisty, and ready to push the debate on economic issues than it has in the past.
‘Cromnibus’ Passes, But Did Anyone Win?
Ben Jacobs
December 12, 2014
Sitting at a cozy café in the center of Tel Aviv, Kallai looks nothing like the feisty woman he plays on screen.
Trans in the Holy Land: ‘Marzipan Flowers,’ Tal Kallai, and the Shattering of Israel’s LGBT Taboos
Itay Hod
November 4, 2014
She has since become an accomplished and feisty human rights lawyer.
Meet Amal Alamuddin, George Clooney’s Wife
Lizzie Crocker, Chris Allbritton
September 28, 2014
The feisty feminist in me has often warred with the longtime gamer in me.
The Cake Is a Lie: Sexism Isn’t a Boss Gamer Girls Can Beat
Emily V Gordon
July 8, 2014

Historical Examples of feisty

I get sort of feisty and want to dav-il her by makin' you look pretty.
The Power and the Glory
Grace MacGowan Cooke
On an impulse he stepped up to the small man who began a grin of recognition, a grin that transformed his feisty face.
Mercenary
Dallas McCord Reynolds

British Dictionary definitions for feisty

feisty

adjective feistier or feistiest informal

lively, resilient, and self-reliant
US and Canadian frisky
US and Canadian irritable

Word Origin for feisty

C19: from dialect feist, fist small dog; related to Old English fīsting breaking wind

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for 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, from Middle English fysten, fisten "break wind" (mid-15c.); related to Old English fisting "stink," 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." Cf. 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].