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In some parts of the southern United States, the word feist (pronounced to rhyme with heist) has been used since the 18th century as a term for a small dog used in hunting more diminutive game animals (such as squirrels). The word comes from the much older, now obsolete word fisting (pronounced as “feisting” would be) meaning “breaking wind,” which was used scornfully in the 16th and 17th centuries to describe gassy pooches. Feisty developed in the late 19th century, its flatulent origin lost, but its small-dog association still visible with a squint: the term conveys the spunk and determination that one may associate with a dog that manages to make its presence known, through its bark or its bite—or perhaps even its indifference to olfactory decorum—despite its small size.
Examples of feisty in a Sentence
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.
Joe Battenfeld, Boston Herald, 15 Jan. 2026
The Rams scrapped back and forth with the feisty Panthers, who in turn were spurred onward by stellar play by third-year quarterback Bryce Young and a playoff crowd that had starved for seven years between postseason appearances.
—Jourdan Rodrigue, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2026
The story follows an English teacher, Penelope Schleeman, who has written a début novel about the adventures of a feisty mermaid living in a matriarchal pod.
—The New Yorker, New Yorker, 7 Jan. 2026
Kiffin was replaced by Pete Golding, a feisty defensive coordinator who made his head-coaching debut in a 41-10 rout of Tulane in the CFP's first round.
—CBS News, 31 Dec. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Feisty.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feisty. Accessed 24 Jan. 2026.
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