different between fist vs fisticuffs

English

Alternative forms

• foost (Scots)

Pronunciation

• enPR: f?st, IPA^(key): /f?st/
• Rhymes: -?st

Etymology 1

From Middle English fist, from Old English f?st (“fist”), from Proto-West Germanic *f?sti, of uncertain origin. Cognate with Dutch vuist, German Faust. More at five.

Noun

fist (plural fists)

1. A hand with the fingers clenched or curled inward.

   The boxer's fists rained down on his opponent in the last round.

2. (printing) The pointing hand symbol ?.
3. (amateur 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. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
6. The talons of a bird of prey.
7. (informal) An attempt at something.
   • 2015, Daniel Taylor, Manchester City’s Sergio Agüero too good for Chelsea as Diego Costa labours (in The Guardian, 16 August 2015) [1]:

     City look stronger, fitter and more motivated than last season and even at this early stage the gap feels like a sizeable advantage. Yes, it is way too early to make snap judgments about the impact on the title race. It has, however, been long enough to ascertain that Manuel Pellegrini’s team are going to make a much better fist of it this time.

   • 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

Translations

Verb

fist (third-person singular simple present fists, present participle fisting, simple past and past participle fisted)

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, Moby Dick, chapter 34

     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.

Translations

See also

• knuckle
• punch

Etymology 2

From Middle English fisten, fiesten, from Old English *fistan ("to break wind gently"; supported by Old English fisting (“breaking wind”)), from Proto-Germanic *fistaz (“breaking wind, fart”), from Proto-Germanic *f?san? (“to break or discharge wind, fart”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peys- (“to blow, breathe”). Cognate with Dutch veest (“a fart”), Low German f?sten (“to break wind”), German Fist (“a quiet wind”), Fisten (“breaking wind”), Swedish fisa (“to fart”), Latin sp?r? (“breathe, blow”), Albanian fryj (“to blow, breath”).

Verb

fist (third-person singular simple present fists, present participle fisting, simple past and past participle fisted)

1. (intransitive) To break wind.

Derived terms

• fisting

Noun

fist (plural fists)

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

Anagrams

• FITs, FiTs, ITFs, TIFs, fits, sift

Middle English

Alternative forms

• fust, fest, feest, vest

Etymology

From Old English f?st, from Proto-West Germanic *f?sti.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fi?st/, /fist/

Noun

fist (plural fistes)

1. fist

Descendants

• English: fist
• Scots: fist, fyst
• Yola: hist, fest

References

• “f??st, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Middle French

Verb

fist

1. third-person singular past historic of faire

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• feset

Verb

fist

1. past participle of fise

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?f?s.t?.k?fs/

Noun

fisticuffs pl (plural only)

1. plural of fisticuff
2. (plural only, informal) An impromptu fight with the fists, usually between only two people.
   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers, "Virginibus Puerisque,"

     People who share a cell in the Basti[l]le […] 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, Chapter XII

     […] , his head all scarred with the sticks and fisticuffs which he had got in the taverns at Utrecht, […]

3. (plural only, sports, dated) Bare-knuckled boxing, a form of boxing done without boxing gloves or similar padding.
   • 1870, Charles Dicken, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Chapter XVII

     In his college days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had known professors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, […]

Synonyms

• (informal: fight): brawl, fight, fist-fight, punch-up
• (bare-knuckled boxing): prizefighting

Related terms

• fist
• fisticuff
• fisticuffer

Translations

See also

• boxing
• fighting