T. C. DesmondJonathan SpivakDavid Rosengarten
Did you know?
That the word foist is commonly used today to mean “to force another to accept by stealth or deceit” makes sense given its original—now obsolete—use in talking about a bit of literal sleight of hand. When it first rolled into English in the mid-1500s, foist was all about dice, dice, baby, referring to palming—that is, concealing in one’s hand a phony die so as to secretly introduce it into a game at a convenient time. The action involved in this cheating tactic reflects the etymology of foist: the word is believed to have come from the obsolete Dutch verb vuisten, meaning “to take into one’s hand.” Vuisten in turn comes from vuyst, the Middle Dutch word for “fist,” which itself is distantly related to the Old English ancestor of fist. By the late 16th century, foist was being used in English to mean “to insert surreptitiously,” and it quickly acquired the “force to accept” meaning that is most familiar today.
Examples of foist in a Sentence
Shannon Carroll, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2025
Frank accused the university of growing too fast and foisting students onto the surrounding neighborhoods.
—Harrison Mantas, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Mar. 2025
In a scenario where the (US) economy weakens, investors normally turn to Treasuries, but the prospect of a Mar-A-Lago Accord being foisted upon them could lead to a buyers’ strike.
Follow me on LinkedIn.
—Mike O'Sullivan, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2025
That was a self-serving fiction, foisted on out-of-touch leaders by an industry that wanted the government to kneecap its competitors.
—Zeynep Tufekci, The Mercury News, 12 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for foist
Cite this Entry
“Foist.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foist. Accessed 6 May. 2025.
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foist
verb
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