fust
/fʌst/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/fʊst/
fust noun: a strong musty smell; mustiness. Also the nonstandard form of first.
Noun (1)
fust (plural fusts)
- A strong musty smell; mustiness.
- the fust of old books & older cheese / nobody loves gossip like these salaried dudes1999, Iain Sinclair, “ocean estate [from The Ebbing of Kraft]”, in Richard Caddel, Peter Quartermain, editors, Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press...
- Despite having been awake now for more than twenty-four hours – and the comforts of gaol had not been so great that I'd slept quietly there, to say nothing of my troubling dreams – I was curiously refreshed. The brisk air blew away the fogs and fusts of London.2003, Philip Gooden, “Incognito”, in Alms for Oblivion, London: Constable, →ISBN
- The shaft (main body) of a column.
- Cherici, Giuseppe, & Sons, Volterra. A large alabaster vase, after the Etrurian style; executed in the exhibitors' manufactory in Volterra, […] The vase is placed on the fust of a column of the Tuscan order.1851, “Tuscany”, in Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851: Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue. By Authority of the Royal Commission. In Three Volumes, volume III...
- Façade of the Benedictines' convent and church wonderfully crowded with ornaments, as likewise the altars generally adorned with twisted pillars flourished all over, and loaden with little puttini, birds, and the like in clusters on the chapiters and between the wreaths along the fusts of the...1871, George Berkeley, Alexander Campbell Fraser, “Journal of a Tour in Italy in 1717, 1718”, in Life and Letters of George Berkeley, D.D. formerly Bishop of Cloyne; and an Account of His Philosophy....
Verb
fust (third-person singular simple present fusts, present participle fusting, simple past and past participle fusted)
- To turn mouldy, to decay.
- Sure he that made vs with ſuch large diſcourse / Looking before and after, gaue vs not / That capabilitie and god-like reaſon / To fvſt in vs vnvſed, […]c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. Newly Imprinted and Enlarged to Almost as Much Againe as it Was, According to the True...
- I mowlde, or fust, as corne dothe. Je moisis, sec. conj.1852, Jean Palsgrave, Giles du Guez, L’Éclaircissement de la langue Française par Jean Palsgrave, suivi de la grammaire de Giles du Guez. Publiés pour la premiére fois en France par F[rançois] Génin...
- Of wine: to acquire an undesirable musty or woody taste from the cask in which it is stored.
- VI. To prevent wine from fuſting, otherwiſe taſting of the caſk, and to give it both a taſte and flavour quite agreeable. Stick a lemon with cloves as thick as it can hold; hang it by the bung hole in a bag over the wine in the caſk for three or four days, and ſtop it very carefully for fear of its...[1797?], “Secrets Relative to Wine”, in Valuable Secrets in Arts and Trades: Or, Approved Directions from the Best Artists. … Containing Upwards of One Thousand Approved Receipts Relative to Arts and...
Noun (2)
fust (plural fusts)
- A type of small galley.
- The great hoste abode still till noone or one of the clocke, and then arose, not all, but about 80 or 100 ships, as gallies, galliasses, and fusts: and passed one after another before the towne and haven of Rhodes three miles off, and came to shore in a place nigh to land, called Perambolin, sixe...1589–1600, Richard Hakluyt, “How Part of the Navie and Armie of the Great Turke Came before the Citie of Rhodes”, in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation...
- The reſt of our ſhips hearing us ſhoot in that manner, entered into their boats, and made towards them, rowing hard to the thre Indian fuſts, wherein were at the leaſt 100 men, and ſhot amongſt them with their pieces, […] and we handled them in ſuch ſort, that of 200 men there got not above thirty...1745, “[A Brief Description of a Voyage Performed by Certain Hollanders to and from the East-Indies, with Their Adventures and Success.] The Manner, Custom, Householding, Child-bearing, Sporting and...
Also used as
fust is also the nonstandard form of first.
Examples of fust in a sentence
- Cruel-cold earth in those." […] "Like corpse boxes," someone else suggested, down in the half-light, snug fust of the village drinking shop.2013, Tanith Lee, “Their Monstrous Minds”, in Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, editors, Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of...
- I marvel that the clergy don't propose / A day of fasting and humiliation, / As they did when potatoe crops were fusted;— / We're now much worse, when porridge-pots are rusted.1875, David Picken, “A Lay Sermon. Written during One of the Formerly Periodic Stagnations of the Weaving Trade.”, in Poems and Songs. …...
- To prevent wine from fuſting, otherwiſe taſting of the caſk, and to give it both a taſte and flavour quite agreeable.[1797?], “Secrets Relative to Wine”, in Valuable Secrets in Arts and Trades: Or, Approved Directions from the Best Artists. … Containing...
- These rocks form the port of Sur, which admits ships of sixty or eighty tons, but none of a larger size; and all flat-bottomed fusts.1827, Gilbert de Lannoy [i.e., Guillebert de Lannoy], “The Report Made by Sir Gilbert de Lannoy, upon Surveys of Several Cities, Ports, and...
Forms of fust
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | fusts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | fusts |
| present participle | fusting |
| past participle | fusted |
| past | fusted |
Origin of fust
From Middle English fust, from Old French fust (“wood; bole, tree trunk”) (modern French fût), from Latin fūstis (“knobbed stick, cudgel, club”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew- (“to hit”) or *gʷʰen- (“to strike; to kill, slay”).
Possibly from Portuguese fusta (“fust”), from Latin fusta (“beam (of wood)”), from fūstis (“knobbed stick, cudgel, club”); compare Middle French fuste.
Words formed from fust
Words that rhyme with fust
25 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about fust
- What does fust mean?
- Fust means a strong musty smell; mustiness.
- How do you use fust in a sentence?
- Cruel-cold earth in those." […] "Like corpse boxes," someone else suggested, down in the half-light, snug fust of the village drinking shop.
- What part of speech is fust?
- Fust can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce fust?
- Fust is pronounced /fʌst/ (UK).
- What is the plural of fust?
- The plural of fust is fusts.
Words near fust in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fust (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fust.wav.
Cite this entry: “fust.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fust. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.