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fisticuff

noun

Etymology

From fist + cuff (“blow with the hand”). Modern uses as a verb are a back-formation on the plural uses of the noun.

  1. derived from *kupjō✻ — “cap”
  2. derived from *kuffju✻
  3. derived from *kuf(f)ja✻ — “headdress”
  4. derived from cofia
  5. inherited from cuffie — “hood, cap”
  6. inherited from cuffe
  7. compounded as fisticuff — “fist + cuff”

Definitions

  1. A fistfight.

    • Every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a rush to some part, to witness a fisticuff.
    • This clearly was not a case for fisticuffs, even apart from the very natural aversion I had to beat that Shadow—this wandering and tormented thing.

  2. A cuff or blow administered with the fist.

    • The apprenticeship of the Prussian Crown Princes has always consisted in receiving fisticuffs and cowhidings from their progenitor, the king.

  3. To engage in a physical fight.

    • Generously scattering a drop of my fortune on an early morning sea breeze. Should have jumped after it. Grabber at life's banquet follows a fortune to doom. As folk fleece and fisticuff in street.
  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. To strike, fight or spar with the fists.

      • Do they fisticuff with thunder-snaggs […]

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for fisticuff. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA