Forms: 4 veze, 6 feas(e, 6–7 feese, 7 feaze, 7– feeze, 9 U.S. pheese, -ze. [f. FEEZE v.1]
1. A rush, impetus; hence, a violent impact. Also, a rub. Now dial. and U.S.
1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 1127.
| And there out came a rage and such a veze, | |
| That it made al the gate for to rese. |
1592. Wyrley, Armorie, 50.
| Fiue Almains streight they light vpon him all | |
| At once: and beare him downe with mightie feas. |
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turkes (1621), 878. Both their [galleys] beakes were with the feaze broken off.
1847. T. Mather, My Auld Aunty Lizzie Was Famed for a Spinner, in Whistle-Binkie (1890), II. 165.
| At times she wad flist an’ wad casten the band, | |
| Then Lizzie wad coax her, as I’ve heard her tell, | |
| Wi’ a lick o’ sweet oil an’ a feeze o’ her hand, | |
| She soon brought the dorty jaud back to hersel’. |
1865. Lowell, Lett. (1894), I. 349. Even the locust’s cry is no longer a mere impertinent feeze of sound or a death-whiz, as if the hot sun-ray were impaling him, but has something of satisfaction in it, as if life were wholesome warmth, indeed, but not mere frying.
† b. To fetch or take (one’s) feeze: to take a short run before leaping. To take one’s full feeze: to start at full speed. Obs.
1571. Campion, Hist. Irel., II. ix. (1633), 120. Advising you though you have fetched your feaze, yet to look well ere you leape over.
1580. Baret, Alv., R 41. To leape, taking his race, or fetching his feese, ex procursu salire.
1600. Holland, Livy, I. lxv. (1609), 87 b. They [the Roman soldiers] tooke their full feese, and ran up the hill.
1675. T. Tully, Let. Baxter, 19. If a man do but goe back a little to take his feeze, he may easily jump over it.
2. U.S. chiefly colloq. A state of alarm or perturbation.
1846. Worcester, Pheese, a fit of fretfulness.
1855. Lowell, Lett., in Atlantic Monthly, LXX. Dec. (1892), 749/2. I have always waited on the good genius, and he will not come for being sent after by express; so I am in a feeze half the time.
1843. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Sam Slick in England, I. ii. Well, when a man’s in a feeze, there’s no more sleep that hitch.
