This week’s theme
Words that have changed

This week’s words
ingenuous
specious
purblind
feisty
officious

Like what you see here?
Send a gift subscription. It’s free.

---

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(FY-stee)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Spirited; full of courage, spunk, or energy.
2. Touchy, irritable, or ill-tempered.

ETYMOLOGY:

From feist, variant of obsolete fist, short for fisting cur, a contemptuous term for a dog, from fist, from Middle English fisten (to break wind). The word fizzle is ultimately derived from the same source. Earliest documented use: 1896.

USAGE:

“When did our national temperament get so feisty, so pugnacious?”
Jim Coyle; Sorry, Canadians Just Aren’t So Nice Anymore; The Toronto Star (Canada); May 29, 2016.

See more usage examples of feisty in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: