Link Centre Dictionary

feisty

UK/ˈfaɪsti/ US/ˈfaɪsti/ uncommon

adjective

1.

showing courage

  • “the champion is faced with a feisty challenger”
Synonyms
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2.

irritable and looking for trouble

  • “too touchy to make judicious decisions”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

1896, American, feist (“small, aggressive dog”) + -y; the term feist (now rare) itself originally meant “stink”, and earlier “fart”, from Middle English, from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, presumably from Proto-Indo-European - see feist for details.

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.