FOIST

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sluggo
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FOIST

Postby sluggo » Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:21 am

foist

Pronunciation
: foyst • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, transitive

Meaning: 1. To pass or palm off something phony. 2. To force or impose something unwanted on someone. 3. {Obsolete} To palm (dice). This led to foist being used as a noun referring to a cheat or scoundrel, an association that continues today.

Notes: Today's word is closely related to fist semantically and etymologically. Along with palm in such phrases as, to palm off, it is associated with sleight of hand and other tricks. This word has a very small family containing only foister "someone who foists." Foisty once existed but it meant "fusty, moldy", going back to the days when a wine cask was called a foist.

In Play: We are most accustomed to this word as a formal way to indicate an attempt to palm something off: "Some guy stopped by this afternoon and tried to foist an electric fork on me. He said it would chew the food for me." If has, however, been confused with force and picked up sense No. 2 above: "The boss has foisted Constance Noring on my team. Boy, will that slow us down!"

Word History: Today's Good Word probably started out as Dutch vuisten "to grab" from Middle Dutch vuist "fist." Of course, our noun fist came from the same source, the PIE root *penkwe-/*ponkwe- "five", with the fickle [n] darting in and out in its usual way. As we all know, the PIE [p] became [f] in Germanic languages, so German fünf (with fickle [n]) and English five (without it) come as no surprise. But then if we add the very common suffix –er, we get finger, five of which we have on each hand. Of course, if we roll them up into a fist, all five remain. So, fist is just the result of another suffix, -sti, added to the same root long ago.

Now, here is where it gets really interesting: Punjab, the name of the region now split between India and Pakistan, is a Persian word comprising panj "five" + ab "water, river", referring to the 5 tributaries to the Indus found there. That word, panj, and Hindi pañc "five", come from the same original word as our five, finger, fist, and today's Good Word, foist!
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Perry
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Postby Perry » Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:18 am

The foist and second uses of the word are often employed. This is the foist time I learned about the third (to palm dice).
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous

sluggo
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Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:58 pm
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Postby sluggo » Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:07 am

The foist and second uses of the word are often employed. This is the foist time I learned about the third (to palm dice).
My, aren't we foisty today :roll:

Indeed, such multiple meanings do make for a movable foist.
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:56 pm

My daughter, a recovering vegetarian, recently returned from a two-week trip to South Africa for an anthropology course. She claims one of the national pastimes there is the outdoor barbecue, during which she relented and ate beef as well as an aardvark steak. Which reminds me: if your pet aardvark dropped an unwelcome "present" on your living room rug, then in sense #2 would you be foist by your own pet aard? Depending on its consistency, cleaning it up could be very aard vark.

:roll:

EDIT:

My mistake, it was not an aardvark steak but a warthog steak. Think Pumbaa instead of Arthur Read. Both can be found in South Africa.
Last edited by Stargzer on Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Regards//Larry

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Perry
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Postby Perry » Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:28 pm

:P
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous


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