a. Also 6 frysky, friscay. [f. FRISK sb. + -Y1.] Given to frisking; lively; playful.
a. 1500[?]. Ragman Roll, 132, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 75.
| And your foot ye tappyn, and ye daunce, | |
| Thogh hit the fryskyst horse were in a towne. |
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. clx. [clvi.] 279 a. The lorde of Clary … was a frisca. and a lusty knyght.
1743. J. Davidson, Æneid, VII. 203. By the Heat in Frisky Bells the Liquors dance.
1780. Mad. D’Arblay, Lett., July. She was as gay, flighty, entertaining, and frisky as ever.
1812. Byron, Waltz, vii. His Sancho thought The knight’s fandango friskier than it ought.
1861. L. L. Noble, After Icebergs, 291. Away they [porpoises] trip it, like so many frisky buffalo calves.
1875. J. H. Bennet, Winter Medit., III. xv. 500. They [the Negroes] are of all ages, from frisky, merry little children to decrepit old men, whose skins become powdery, of a greyish white, with age.
1885. Manch. Exam., 2 May, 6/2. The dogs, at once sagacious and frisky, have been admirably drawn.
U.S. slang. 1872. Black River Gaz. (Ludlow, VT), 8 Nov., 4/1. Frisky—the weather.
Hence Friskily adv., in a frisky manner; Friskiness, the quality or state of being frisky.
1727. Bailey, Friskiness.
1778. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 3 Aug. I left him … to make his own comments upon my friskiness.
1862. Lytton, Str. Story, II. 74. The white bear gambols … friskily after his meal on human flesh.
1865. The Saturday Review, XX. 5 Aug., 172/2. It may have been merely an outpouring of intellectual friskiness, which would naturally be thrown aside after the start had once been made and the officials had settled down to their work.
1894. Daily News, 20 March, 3/1. The brims to hats are friskily curved.
