A worthless dog. Southern. Examples of fisting dog occur 1529, 1576, 1688; Chapman has foisting hounds, ab. 1611; Davenant, foisting mongrels, 1656. See N.E.D.
1842. Private individuals were bull-dogged, or fice-dogged, if the gentleman pleases.—Mr. Stanly of N. Carolina in the House of Representatives, April 28: Cong. Globe, p. 478. He went on to say that no member of the committee bore any resemblance, either in looks or in conduct, to a long, lean, lank, half starved, hungry——. Here the Chair stopped him.
1843. Did you ever see a pack composed of five or six little fice dogs, barking furiously?—Missouri Reporter, St. Louis, June 29.
1851. “I’ll bury you, you little whifflin fice,” said Captain Suggs in a rage; and he dashed at yellow-legs furiously.—J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., p. 88 (Phila.).
1851. [The sounding of the horn] was sufficient invitation to every hound, foist, and “cur of low degree,” that followed the guests, to join in the chorus.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 18.
1853. I would just as soon hear a little phice—fice dog bark, as a candidate boasting himself.—Daily Morning Herald, St. Louis, March 14.
1854. I jumped several feet, and hollered: Get eout, you fiest dog! you dog fiest, get eout!—Weekly Oregonian, Aug. 5.
1855. I had got nearly to the bottom, when a little fiste dog came trotting up the entry.—Id., Aug. 11.
1860. John Bell may indeed be a very “little dog”—yea, a most excellent fice.—Richmond Enquirer, July 10, p. 1/5.
1862.
| Bull-dog, terrier, cur, and fice, | |
| Back to the beggarly land of ice; | |
| Worry ’em, bite ’em, scratch and tear | |
| Every body and everywhere. | |
Rockingham (Va.) Register, n.d. |
1863. What other Pete can I mean but your dirty, little fice dog? You had no right to call a mangy little dog arter a horse.—J. B. Jones, ‘Wild Western Scenes,’ p. 15 (Richmond, Va.).
1866. [I had] a neighbor who was one of these mean, little, snarling, fic-dog sort of men.—C. H. Smith, ‘Bill Arp,’ p. 114.
1866. Dodds says, before he’d pull a trigger for Thad Stevens, he’d have his soul transmigrated to a bench-leg’d fice.—Id., p. 159.
1874. A quartette of dogs set up a vociferous barking, ranging in key all the way from the contemptible treble of an ill-natured “fice” to the deep baying of a huge bull-dog.—E. Eggleston, ‘The Circuit Rider,’ p. 89.
1890. They [the frontiersmen] hide and coddle a little fyst dog, or make a soft place for a pet antelope, and take care of these creatures like trained nurses.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Following the Guidon,’ p. 78 (N.Y.).
1890. All the dogs of the regiment were with us, apparently, from the lofty and high-born staghounds down to the little feist, or mongrel, of the trooper.—Id., p. 221.
1902. A bench-legged fiste is a small dog of the bull-dog type, with square breast and fore legs wide apart. (Southern Illinois.)—‘Dialect Notes,’ ii. 234.
