| 词组 | feisty |
| 释义 | feisty Nickles 1974 disparages those who use feisty without knowing its origin. Bremner 1980 repeats much of Nickles verbatim but places more emphasis on the etymology itself: feisty comes from feist (spelled fee by William Faulkner in his writings), a small dog, from obsolete fisting hound, from obsolete fist "to break wind." Flesch 1983 approves the word, in spite of its "unappetizing origins." Nickles's slighting comments were probably provoked by the fairly recent popularity of feisty, which is what brought it to Flesch's attention. Feisty is of dialectal origin, and it seems to have had mainly pejorative overtones in dialect: • "... I don't aim to take no snot offen him, and if he gets feisty with me, I'll take and learn him a little re-speck." —Emmett Gowen, The Dark Noon of March, 1933 • Savage was lean, needlessly dirty, with a feisty unshaven face —Luke Short, Vengeance Valley, 1950 But as the term moved into general use, it lost the pejorative overtones and has come to be used of someone or something that is admirably, if a bit uncomfortably, full of fighting spirit: • ... if you're for him, he's feisty; if you're not, he's arrogant —George V. Higgins, quoted in People, 1 Dec. 1975 • His concession speech is feisty as ever—the truth, he says, will rise again —David Halberstam, Harper's, January 1971 • ... this tiny, feisty, dark-haired woman of seemingly limitless energy and a propensity for throwing caution to the wind —Hays Gorey, N. Y. Times Mag., 22 Jan. 1978 • ... rejecting crabs that are technically alive but half ossified by ice in favor of those fresh and feisty enough to snap their claws —Caroline Bates, Gourmet, March 1977 • Of course, I was committing an elitist sin even to mention Mozart's name, but then I get to feeling feisty at times and dare to do the unthinkable — Martha Banta, College English, October 1980 A few reference works call feisty slang or colloquial, but it is in standard use. |
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