Word.ws English Dictionary

fisticuff

fisticuff noun: a fistfight.

Noun

fisticuff (plural fisticuffs)

  1. (rare) A fistfight.
    • Every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a rush to some part, to witness a fisticuff.1852, Eli Bowen et al., The Pictorial Sketch-book of Pennsylvania
    • This clearly was not a case for fisticuffs, even apart from the very natural aversion I had to beat that Shadow—this wandering and tormented thing.1902, Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”, in Youth: A Narrative: And Two Other Stories, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and sons, →OCLC, part III, pages 161–162
  2. (obsolete) A cuff or blow administered with the fist.
    • The apprenticeship of the Prussian Crown Princes has always consisted in receiving fisticuffs and cowhidings from their progenitor, the king.2021, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Verb

fisticuff (third-person singular simple present fisticuffs, present participle fisticuffing, simple past and past participle fisticuffed)

  1. (humorous) To engage in a physical fight.
    • Generously scattering a drop of my fortune on an early morning sea breeze. Should have jumped after it. Grabber at life's banquet follows a fortune to doom. As folk fleece and fisticuff in street.1963, J P Donleavy, A Singular Man, published 1963 (USA), page 265
  2. (obsolete) To strike, fight or spar with the fists.
    • Do they fisticuff with thunder-snaggs […]1846, Making of America Project, The American Whig Review

fisticuff meaning in Tamil and Urdu

fisticuff in Tamil

உளிக்குத்து

fisticuff in Urdu

گھونسے بازی, مکہ بازی, مکہ ماری

Forms of fisticuff

Noun
pluralfisticuffs
Verb
third-person singular presentfisticuffs
present participlefisticuffing
past participlefisticuffed
pastfisticuffed

Origin of fisticuff

From fist + cuff (“blow with the hand”). Modern uses as a verb are a back-formation on the plural uses of the noun.

Words formed from fisticuff

Questions about fisticuff

What does fisticuff mean?
Fisticuff means a fistfight.
What is fisticuff in Tamil?
Fisticuff in Tamil is உளிக்குத்து. See Fisticuff meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is fisticuff?
Fisticuff can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of fisticuff?
The plural of fisticuff is fisticuffs.

Words near fisticuff in the dictionary

  1. fistful
  2. fistfuls
  3. fistiana
  4. fistic
  5. fistical
  6. fisticuff
  7. fisticuffed
  8. fisticuffer
  9. fisticuffers
  10. fisticuffery
  11. fisticuffing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fisticuff (page history and authors); fisticuff (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fisticuff (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.

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