Feisty

How to spell feisty

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce feisty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does feisty mean?

1. adjectiveLively, spirited, and willing to argue or stand up for oneself.

Feisty in a sentence

• The feisty negotiator refused to accept the first offer on the table.

• Despite her small stature, the new manager proved remarkably feisty in meetings.

Where does feisty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Feisty has a surprisingly earthy past. It grew from the American dialect noun 'feist', a word for a small, excitable, yappy dog, which was itself a shortening of older phrases like 'fysting cur', meaning a worthless little dog. That 'fysting' element traces back through Middle English to the Old English verb 'fistan', which bluntly meant to break wind; the small dog was, in effect, named for being a smelly little nuisance. Over the 1800s in the United States the adjective 'feisty' shifted away from that crude root and came to describe a person who, like the bristling little dog, was lively, touchy, and ready for a scrap. The modern sense is now affectionate or admiring, suggesting spirited and full of nerve, with the original odour of the word entirely forgotten. The spelling trap is the 'ei' vowel cluster, which follows the 'sound' pattern rather than the more familiar 'ie'.

How the word is built

• feist (a small, snappy dog)
• -y (adjective-forming suffix)