as in health
a state of being or fitness
a visit to the relatives on the other side of the state revealed them all to be in fine fettle
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Recent Examples of fettle
Canada looked in fine fettle and are well on their way to the knockouts.
—
Phil Hay, New York Times, 20 June 2025
Daniels suffered a rib injury midway through the season, but he’s returned in fine fettle, and the future seems impossibly bright, with the expectation of a decade or more of Daniels excellence, playing for a hard-nosed, championship-winning coach in Dan Quinn.
—David Aldridge, The Athletic, 29 Dec. 2024
That level of hostility put her in fine fettle to deal with Kevin James’ gang of escaped cons, who arrived seeking a mysterious item at the family’s summer house.
—Dennis Harvey, Variety, 26 May 2023
The three women are in fine fettle, with dog-walking grandmother Suzie finding local fame (if not fortune) on the radio and septuagenarian Judith still crafting fiendishly clever crosswords and scandalizing local birdwatchers by skinny-dipping even in winter.
—Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor, 16 May 2023
See All Example Sentences for fettle
Phil Hay, New York Times, 20 June 2025
Daniels suffered a rib injury midway through the season, but he’s returned in fine fettle, and the future seems impossibly bright, with the expectation of a decade or more of Daniels excellence, playing for a hard-nosed, championship-winning coach in Dan Quinn.
—David Aldridge, The Athletic, 29 Dec. 2024
That level of hostility put her in fine fettle to deal with Kevin James’ gang of escaped cons, who arrived seeking a mysterious item at the family’s summer house.
—Dennis Harvey, Variety, 26 May 2023
The three women are in fine fettle, with dog-walking grandmother Suzie finding local fame (if not fortune) on the radio and septuagenarian Judith still crafting fiendishly clever crosswords and scandalizing local birdwatchers by skinny-dipping even in winter.
—Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor, 16 May 2023
See All Example Sentences for fettle
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fettle
Noun
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Hughes has more than 25 years of experience, including leadership roles, with the YMCA and has focused on supporting health and youth innovations, a museum news release said.—
Michelle Mullins,
Chicago Tribune,
13 Mar. 2026
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Yet when the researchers blocked key proteins involved in dendritic growth, the improvements disappeared—a suggestion that the drug’s mental-health effects might depend on the growth.—
Clayton Dalton,
New Yorker,
13 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Protest organizers say the action is not only about Noma, but about the broader restaurant industry as a whole and the conditions and personalities that have come to shape it.—
Brock Keeling,
Oc Register,
12 Mar. 2026
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The results showed that women eventually diagnosed with either of these two conditions — 849 with mild cognitive impairment and 752 with dementia — had larger amounts of p-tau217 in their initial blood sample way back in the mid-to-late 1990s.—
Paul Sisson,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
12 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The effect was as if the players were inside a cloud of ever-moving lights, shapes and colors.—
Peter Larsen,
Oc Register,
12 Mar. 2026
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In fact, topography made this impossible, and Costa had to curve one of the axes, resulting in the airplane shape that made his project famous.—
Sophia La Banca,
JSTOR Daily,
11 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Fettle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fettle. Accessed 14 Mar. 2026.
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