Word.ws English Dictionary

feese

feese is the obsolete form of feeze.

feese is the alternative form of fess.

feese is the alternative form of feeze.

Meaning of feeze

Noun

feeze (plural feezes)

  1. (US, dialectal) A state of worry or alarm.
    • All this time, they were chattering; but at last I thought, by the sound of their voices, that they must be walking away, and I never was in such a feeze in all my life, in case they should be gone before I could get up the wall ; and when I did get up it, sure enough, gone they was!1797, Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette, page 203
  2. (US, dialectal, also fetch one's feeze) A rush, impetus, or a violent impact; also, a rub.
    • […]though you haue fetched your feaze, yet to looke well ere you leape.1577, Raphael Holinshed, quoting James Butler, “The thirde Booke of the Historie of Ireland, comprising the raigne of Henry the eyght”, in The firste [laste] volume of the chronicles of England...
  3. (Scotland, obsolete) A device for wedging items into a tight space.
    • setting up the most expedient agricolary instruments of wains, carts, slades, with their several devices of wheels and axle-trees, plows and harrows of divers sorts, feezes, winders, pullies, and all other manner of engines fit for easing the toyl and furthering the work;1653, Sir Thomas Urquhart, Logopandecteision

See all 12 meanings of feeze

Meaning of fess

Noun

fess (plural fesses)

  1. A horizontal band across the middle of the shield.
    • Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral—Hum! Arms: Azure, three caltrops in chief over a fess sable.1892, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, Norton, published 2005, page 294

See all 6 meanings of fess

Forms of feese

pluralfeeses

Origin of feese

Perhaps from Middle English fese (“a blast, a rush, a burst”), a derivative of Middle English fesen (“to put to flight”). More at faze.

Questions about feese

What is feese the obsolete form of?
Feese is the obsolete form of feeze.

Words near feese in the dictionary

  1. fees simple
  2. fees simple subject to condition subsequent
  3. fees simple subject to executory interest
  4. fees simple subject to executory limitation
  5. fees tail
  6. feese
  7. Feeser
  8. Feesers
  9. feeses
  10. feesh
  11. feesing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feese (page history and authors); feeze (page history and authors); fess (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “feese.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feese. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.