(plurale tantum, informal) An impromptu fight with the fists, usually between only two people.
1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers, ","People who share a cell in the Bastille ... if they do not immediately fall to fisticuffs, will find some possible ground of compromise.
1890, Edmondo de Amicis translated by Caroline Tilton, Holland and Its People,..., his head all scarred with the sticks and fisticuffs which he had got in the taverns at Utrecht, ...
(plurale tantum, sports, dated) Bare-knuckled boxing, a form of boxing done without boxing gloves or similar padding.
1870, Charles Dicken, ,In his college days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had known professors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, ...
