Dictionary

fisticuff en · NOUN

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. (rare) A fistfight.
   • 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:
   • 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:
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:

Forms

fisticuff en · VERB

Etymology

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

Meanings

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:

Forms

Deriveds

fisticuffer