feisty
/ˈfaɪsti/
feisty adjective: tenacious, energetic, spunky.
Adjective
feisty (comparative feistier or more feisty, superlative feistiest or most feisty)
- Tenacious, energetic, spunky.
- spirited and feisty
- She gave a feisty response during the debate.
- Belligerent; prepared to stand and fight, especially in spite of relatively small stature or some other disadvantage.
- small but feisty
- The feisty wife of a world-renowned Russian sculptor emasculated an armed thug outside her Soho home — saying he “didn’t have the cojones to shoot her,” police sources said yesterday.2013 July 10, Daniel Prendergast, “‘You don’t have the cojones’: 54-year-old woman fronts up to would-be muggers who pointed gun at her chest”, in New York Post, archived from the original on 02 Aug...
- Easily offended and ready to bicker.
- a feisty attitude
- Synonyms:
- testy
feisty meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Thai and Vietnamese
feisty in Tamil
- கொடூரமான, அஞ்சான்
feisty in Urdu
- فراواں, تیز
feisty in Thai
- belligerent
- ซ่า sâa
feisty in Vietnamese
- easily offended
- đanh đá
Examples of feisty in a sentence
- She is impatient. She is mercurial. She is feisty. All that said, she is still lovable.
- These were chunky, feisty linesiders; most were between 20 and 24 inches.
- Unlike the sweet virgins of earlier romances, the heroines of the bodice rippers were notoriously feisty.
Synonyms of feisty
Forms of feisty
| comparative | feistier |
|---|---|
| comparative | more feisty |
| superlative | feistiest |
| superlative | most feisty |
Origin of feisty
First use appears c. 1875 in the US. From feist (“a small, aggressive dog”) + -y; the term feist (now rare) itself originally meant “stink”, and earlier “fart”, from Middle English, from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, presumably from Proto-Indo-European – see feist for details.
Words formed from feisty
Questions about feisty
- What does feisty mean?
- Feisty means tenacious, energetic, spunky.
- What is feisty in Tamil?
- Feisty in Tamil is கொடூரமான, அஞ்சான். See Feisty meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is feisty?
- Feisty is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce feisty?
- Feisty is pronounced /ˈfaɪsti/.
Words near feisty in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: feisty (page history and authors); feisty (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); feisty (Urdu Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-feisty.wav.
Cite this entry: “feisty.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feisty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.