English

Alternative forms

• feist, fise, fist

Noun

fice ‎(plural fices)

1. (US regional) A small, snappy, belligerent, mixed-breed dog.
   • 1805 October 3, Lorenzo Dow, journal, in Orrin Scofield (ed.), Perambulations of Cosmopolite; or Travels and Labors of Lorenzo Dow, in Europe and America, Orrin Scofield (1842), page 178,

     He wrote a letter to Bob Sample, one of the most popular A-double-L-part preachers in the country, who like a little fice, or cur dog, would rail behind my back.

   • a1849, James W. C. Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith; or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church, New York, Formerly a Slave in the State of Maryland, United States, Second Edition, Charles Gilpin (1849), pages 33–34,

     Besides inflicting upon my own excited imagination the belief that I made noise enough to be heard by the inmates of the house who were likely to be rising at the time, I had the misfortune to attract the notice of a little house-dog, such as we call in that part of the world a “fice,’ on account of its being not only the smallest species of the canine race, but also, because it is the most saucy, noisy, and teasing of all dogs.

   • 1873, Joseph S. Williams, Old Times in West Tennessee: Reminiscences—Semi-historic—of Pioneer Life and the Early Emigrant Settlers in the Big Hatchie Country, W. G. Cheeney, page 260,

     One August afternoon he was returning from his dinner, when near the public square, he came to a little white fice dog and another little dog grining and growling at each other on the sidewalk.

   • 1955, John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, Harper and Brothers Publishers, page 114

     At Belton, an armed thug suddenly arose and started toward him. But old Sam Houston, looking him right in the eye, put each hand on his own pistols: "Ladies and Gentlemen, keep your seats. It is nothing but a fice barking at the lion in his den.

   • 1995, George Cauley, quoted in Mark Derr, Dog’s Best Friend: Annals of the Dog-Human Relationship, University of Chicago Press (2004), ISBN 0-226-14280-9, page 57,

     When I was growing up, everybody had a little dog they called a feist or fice and a big yard dog, a cur.

Latin

Noun

fīce

1. vocative singular of fīcus