a. Also fi-fi. [f. FIE by doubling.] Jocularly used for: Improper, of improper character.
1812. G. Colman, Br. Grins, Two Parsons, vii.
| What would [if we were sinless] become of all the fie-fie ladies? | |
| And all proprietors of paw-paw houses! |
1837. T. E. Hook, Jack Brag, II. v. 209. He became first an officer, then an aid-de-camp, and at last—but then, there is such a long fie-fie story about that—he married the general’s daughter!
1860. Trollope, Framley P., vi. There were one or two fie-fie little anecdotes about a married lady, not altogether fit for young Mr. Robarts’s ears.
1873. St. Paul’s Mag., Jan. 9. She was rather fifi.
Hence Fie-fie sb., a woman of tarnished reputation. Fie-fie v. a. intr. To say Fie! b. trans. To say Fie! to.
1820. Lady Granville, Lett., 25 Aug. (1894), I. 164. Lady Charlotte Greville, nervous and bilious, perched upon a war-horse, heading a detachment of girls with their respective dandies and then a mixture of Tierney, Dowager Lansdowne, fye-fyes, and venerable peers.
1836. Libr. Fiction, I. 371. Dr. Tweezum shook all the powder out of his wig in ‘fie, fieing’ the excesses of divers gentlemen who laboured wofully under the influences of certain evil, though excisable spirits.
1893. Punch, 13 Aug., 72/2, Aspiration.
| Oh, to be a Pulpiteer! | |
| Purists may fie-fie, or sneer. |
