feisty

adjective

ˈfī-stē

feistier; feistiest

Synonyms of feisty next

chiefly Southern US and Midland US

: full of nervous energy : fidgety

: touchy, quarrelsome

: exuberantly frisky

: having or showing a lively aggressiveness : spunky

the movie's feisty heroine

feistiness noun

Did you know?

In certain parts of the United States, most notably the South, the noun feist (pronounced to rhyme with heist) refers to a small dog used in hunting small game animals (such as squirrels). Also spelled fice or fyce, it comes from an obsolete term, "fisting hound," that derived from another obsolete term, fist, a verb that once meant "to break wind." The term feisty has come a long way from its flatulent origin, but its small-dog association still seems relevant: the term conveys the spunk and determination that one may associate with a dog that manages to make its presence known (either through its bark or its bite) despite its small size.

Examples of feisty in a Sentence

I was feisty, because people misinterpret what country music is, just like they think Southerners are a bunch of hicks. —

Wynonna Judd, quoted in Rolling Stone, 8-22 July 1993

Humorist Cynthia Heimel never plays it safe, bless her feisty little heart. She's outrageous and hilarious, daring to say exactly what she and millions of other women really think … —

Donna Seaman, Booklist, 15 May 1993

… Milwaukee was the last major industrial city to elect a Socialist mayor—Frank P. Zeidler, a feisty octogenarian who teaches today at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee … —

Charles P. Pierce, Village Voice, 10 Mar. 1992

She never tired of hearing anecdotes from her childhood, and she particularly liked to hear how feisty she had been … —

Lorene Cary, Black Ice, 1991

The novel features a feisty heroine. Even her opponents admire her feisty spirit.

Recent Examples on the Web That might come to pass, but my prediction represents something like the best-case scenario — Arizona is poised to be feisty and Seattle is perhaps the league’s biggest wild card in 2024. —

Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 18 May 2024 The central relationships are off: A stereotypically feisty, ahead-of-her-time Virginia swerves between urging her father to defend science and the opposite, their parent-child bond failing to convince as a result. —

Dennis Harvey, Variety, 17 May 2024 See all Example Sentences for feisty

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'feisty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.