Obs. exc. dial. [? f. FIT a. or v. + -Y1; but cf. FEATOUS, FEATISH, and FEATY of which it may be a corruption.] Fitting, becoming, proper, suitable; hence, nice, trim, neat.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. ix. (Arb.), 169. Others strained themselues to giue the Greeke wordes Latin names, and yet nothing so apt and fitty.
1746. Exmoor Scolding, 73. Thy buzzom Chucks were pretty vittee. Ibid., 569. Tha stewarliest and vittiest Wanch that comath on tha Stones o’ Moulton, no Dispreise.
a. 1800. Ballad, in Edin. Mag., LXXXII. Oct. (1818), 328/2.
| The fittie fairies liftit her, | |
| Aneth them cluve the yird, | |
| An’ doun the grim how, to the warl’ below, | |
| They bure that bonnie burd. |
1880. W. Cornw. Gloss., ‘Your dress isn’t looking fitty.’
Hence Fittily adv.; Fittiness; Fittyways, -wise adv., properly.
1746. Exmoor Scolding, 209. Tha hast no Stroil ner Docity, no Vittiness in enny keendest Theng.
1810. Devon. & Cornw. Voc., in Monthly Mag., XXIX. 1 June, 435/2. ‘That coat is fittily made’; that is, ‘that coat is well made.’
1880. W. Cornw. Gloss., ‘Do behave fitty-ways.’
1893. A. T. Quiller-Couch, Delectable Duchy, 50. ’Tis our last taste o’ free life, and we’m going to do the thing fittywise.
