Fist

Pronunciation

• enPR: fÄ­st, IPA: /fɪst/
• Rhymes: -ɪst

From Middle English fisten, fiesten, from Old English *fistan (), from Proto-Germanic *fistaz ("breaking wind, fart"), from Proto-Germanic *fīsaną ("to break or discharge wind, fart"), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peys- ("to blow, breathe"). Cognate with Dutch veest ("a fart"), Low German fīsten ("to break wind"), German Fist ("a quiet wind"), Fisten ("breaking wind"), Swedish fisa ("to fart"), Latin spīrō ("breathe, blow"), Albanian fryj ("to blow, breath").

Full definition of fist

Verb

1. (intransitive) To break wind.

Derived terms

• fisting

Noun

1. The act of breaking wind; fise.
2. A puffball.

From Middle English fist, from Old English fȳst ("fist"), from Proto-Germanic *funstiz (compare West Frisian fûst, Dutch vuist, German Faust), from Proto-Indo-European *pn̥kʷ-sti 'fist' (compare Lithuanian kùmstė, Old Church Slavonic pęstĭ), from *pénkʷe 'five'. More at five.

Noun

1. hand with the fingers clenched or curled inwardThe boxer's fists rained down on his opponent in the last round.
2. (printing) the pointing hand symbol ☞
3. (ham radio) the characteristic signaling rhythm of an individual telegraph or CW operator when sending Morse code
4. (slang) a person's characteristic handwriting
5. A group of men.
6. The talons of a bird of prey.
• SpenserMore light than culver in the falcon's fist.
7. (informal) An attempt at something.
• 2005, Darryl N. Davis, Visions of Mind: Architectures for Cognition and Affect (page 144)With the rise of cognitive neuroscience, the time may be coming when we can make a reasonable fist of mapping down from an understanding of the functional architecture of the mind to the structural architecture of the brain.

Synonyms

• bunch of fives
• fist-size
• ductus

Derived terms

Related terms

• fisticuff
• tight-fisted

Verb

1. To strike with the fist....may not score a point with his open hand(s), but may score a point by fisting the ball. Damian Cullen. "Running the rule." The Irish Times 18 Aug 2003, pg. 52.
2. To close (the hand) into a fist.
• 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, p. 29:He noticed Ada's trick of hiding her fingernails by fisting her hand or stretching it with the palm turned upward when helping herself to a biscuit.
3. To grip with a fist.
• 1851, Herman Melville, ,I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fist a bit of old-fashioned beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I was before the mast.
4. (slang) To fist-fuck.

Anagrams

• fits
• sift