fist

plural fists

1. A hand with the fingers clenched or curled inward.

   The boxer's fists rained down on his opponent in the last round.

2. Synonym of manicule.

   Synonyms: manicule

3. amateur radioThe characteristic signaling rhythm of an individual telegraph or CW operator when sending Morse code.
4. slangA person's characteristic handwriting.
5. A group of men.
6. The talons of a bird of prey.

   More light then Culver in the Faulcons fist.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 34

7. informalAn attempt at something.

   With the rise of cognitive neuroscience, the time may be coming when we can make a reasonable fist of mapping down from an understanding of the functional architecture of the mind to the structural architecture of the brain.

   2005, Darryl N. Davis, Visions of Mind: Architectures for Cognition and Affect, page 144

   1 more example

   City look stronger, fitter and more motivated than last season and even at this early stage the gap feels like a sizeable advantage. Yes, it is way too early to make snap judgments about the impact on the title race. It has, however, been long enough to ascertain that Manuel Pellegrini’s team are going to make a much better fist of it this time.

   2015 August 16, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian

present singular third person fists · participle present fisting · participle past fisted · past fisted

1. To strike with the fist.

   ...may not score a point with his open hand(s), but may score a point by fisting the ball.

   18 Aug 2003, Damian Cullen. "Running the rule" The Irish Times page 52

2. To close (the hand) into a fist.

   He noticed Ada's trick of hiding her fingernails by fisting her hand or stretching it with the palm turned upward when helping herself to a biscuit.

   1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 29

3. To grip with a fist.

   I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fist a bit of old-fashioned beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I was before the mast.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 34”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

4. slangTo fist-fuck.
5. transitivegamesTo stomp, to utterly defeat

present singular third person fists · participle present fisting · participle past fisted · past fisted

1. intransitiveTo break wind.

plural fists

1. The act of breaking wind; fise.
2. A puffball.

1. abbreviationacronymAcronym of Future Infantry Soldier Technology.