firk, a frisk; (humorously), a dance. Shirley, Hyde Park, ii. 2 (Lacy).
firk up, to trim up. Shirley, Constant Maid, ii. 1 (Playfair).
fisgig, a light, worthless female, fond of gadding about. Tusser, Husbandry, § 77. 8; ‘Trotiere, a fisgig, fisking huswife, gadding flirt’, Cotgrave. See NED. (s.v. Fizgig).
fisk, to scamper about, frisk, move briskly; ‘Then he fyskes abrode’, Latimer, Fourth Sermon (ed. Arber, p. 104); ‘Tome Tannkard’s Cow . . . fysking with her taile’, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 2; fysking, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 45. 2; ‘Fisking about the house’, Otway, Venice Preserved, ii. 1 (Pierre). A Shropshire word (EDD.).
fist, a contemptuous expression; ‘Fist o’ your kindness!’, Eastward Ho, iv. 1 [or 2] (Gertrude). Also spelt fiste, fyste, foist; the orig. sense is a breaking wind, a disagreeable smell. See NED. (s.v. Fist, sb.2).
fisting-hound, a spaniel; a contemptuous term. Fleming, tr. of Caius’ Dogs; in Arber, Eng. Garner, iii. 287. See above.
fitches, ‘vetches’. Bible, Isaiah xxviii. 25; fytches, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 20. 40, § 70. 8. ‘Vesce, . . . fitch or vitch’, Cotgrave. ‘Fitches’ in gen. prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and England (EDD.).
fitchock, fichok, a polecat. Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 2 (Petillius); Scornful Lady, v. 1 (end). ‘Fitch’ is a common prov. word for the polecat; see EDD. (s.v. Fitch, also, Fitchock).
fitten, fitton, an untruth, an invention. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1 (Amorphus); Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 54. ‘Fitten’ is in prov. use for ‘an idle fancy’, ‘a pretence’, in Hants., Wilts., and Somerset (EDD.). ME. fyton or lesynge, ‘mendacium’ (Prompt. EETS., see note no. 729).
fitters, fragments, rags, pieces. Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, iii. 3. 4; Pilgrim, i. 1. 22. In prov. use in the north (EDD.).