Pronunciations
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/fiːz/
Noun
A state of worry or alarm.
Usage- US usage
- dialectal
- Examples
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More examples (1)
All this time, they were chattering; but at last I thought, by the sound of their voices, that they must be walking away, and I never was in such a feeze in all my life, in case they should be gone before I could get up the wall ; and when I did get up it, sure enough, gone they was!
“Don't git in a feeze, uncle Tib;—you can't help your head, I dare say;[…]”
More examples (1)
[Crispin buys a lottery ticket and splashes out in anticipation of winning.] The next morning Violetta [his daughter] was paraded through the streets by a smart clerk in the neighbourhood[…]At the turn of the next street they met Crispin himself, with a visage of alarming length. He was fresh from the office, where they told him he had drawn a—blank!—The smart beau sneaked off in a feeze, Crispin and his goods were sold out by the sheriff[…]
Why what a feeze you air in, to be sure!
A rush, impetus, or a violent impact; also, a rub.
Usage- US usage
- dialectal
- Examples
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[…]though you haue fetched your feaze, yet to looke well ere you leape.
More examples (2)
Dabscote no harme receiued by his fall But lightly vp himselfe againe doth rease, Fiue Almains streight they light vpon him all At once: and beare him downe with mightie feas.
This tale being bleated out and heard, this cornuted husband of the sheep's heads fetching a feeze backward (like the Roman ram, to push forward with the more violent and villainous force) ran with all his horniferous strength at the poor fire-felon and stroke his brow-butters full in Prometheus's forehead that the very print remaineth in his front, and doth still in some of his race to this day;
[…]as hee that leapeth forward fetcheth his feeze a great way backe[…]
More examples (2)
Our Man of Art[…]finds some words which will not at all serve is turn[…]viz. (An excellent Conserver of Liberty, but never intended for any share in Government, or the choosing of them that should govern)[…]and therefore well bethinks himself, retires a little, begins at An excellent Conserver of Liberty, makes that plural, adds, &c. which is not in the Original, fetches his feeze and leaps quite over all the rest of the Parenthesis[…]
Then Lizzie wad coax her, as I've heard her tell, Wi' a lick o' sweet oil an' a feeze o' her hand, She soon brought the dorty jaud back to hersel'.
A device for wedging items into a tight space.
Usage- Scotland
- Obsolete
- Examples
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More examples (1)
setting up the most expedient agricolary instruments of wains, carts, slades, with their several devices of wheels and axle-trees, plows and harrows of divers sorts, feezes, winders, pullies, and all other manner of engines fit for easing the toyl and furthering the work;
The Dean and assessors —unanimoslie condishended and agreied upon that ane compitent number of feezes be made for packing of pleding.
Verb
To drive off or away; to make (someone) run, put to flight; to frighten away; compare faze.
Usage- dialectal
- Obsolete
- often
- Transitive
- with about
- Examples
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More examples (2)
Gracious! what a hurly-burly 'twas! How the volks veased [gloss: Hurried, drove] out o' church—higgeldy piggeldy, helter skelter: zich jitting, [gloss: Pushing against each other], driving, and dringing. [gloss: Squeezing]
A Vriday I went to winding [gloss: Winnowing], and took the Boy wi' me, to cry turr, [gloss: An expression used in driving pigs], and vease away the pigs from nuzzling in the corn[…]
but you Republicans are so much accustomed to this uncertainty upon many other questions that it need not feeze you at all.
More examples (2)
But the crows and squirrels and various birds called his attention from his work at about every second stroke of the hoe, and the questions I had to answer would have feezed Agassiz.
That of itself set gossip flying, for Whitcroft, as he had said, was a talky place: but Dave knew and approved, so the evil hints with the tongue in the cheek never feesed me.
[…] but as any old fighter will tell you there is nothing more discouraging than to discover that your most effective blows do not feeze your opponent, […]
More examples (2)
Old Dunbar's heavy-lidded yellow eyes lighted on it and turned away. There was about as much encouragement in his leathery face as in my old camel Josephine's, when the gentlemen of her party think they're particularly entertaining. But d'you think that feezed Hustling Billy? He just waited.
But that did not feeze the old man; he said, “Well, we will put it in the Constitution.”
To beat; to chastise.
Usage- dialectal
- Transitive
- Examples
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Come, will you quarrel? I will feeze you, sirrah.
[The characters are fighting.] Well: [He] has given me my Quietus est; I felt him In my small guts, I'm sure [he] has feez'd me: This comes of siding with you.
More examples (3)
An he proud with me, I'll feeze his pride.
He had not been squelched. he had not been feased by the feigned rebuke of the Hon. John Masterson McInnery.
At last in desperation the excited man fed the bird a strychnine pill. It ate it ev'ry bit, it feezed it not a whit, and the appetite was keener still.
To cause to swing about.
Usage- dialectal
- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
When stormy winter shook the trees, An' drumly dubs began to freeze, An' Christmas times brought bread an' cheese, An' routh o' whisky, Auld Carlo then his tail would feeze Sae keen an' frisky.
To cause to swing about. To swing about in the wind; to flare (as a candle)
Usage- dialectal
- Intransitive
- Transitive
To frighten, put into a state of alarm.
Usage- dialectal
- Intransitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Not that mothers should neglect children for husband, but that they might be quite as well off with less of your feezing and fussing, and he much the better with more of your affections.
he just did an honest day's work, each day, without worrying and "feezing" about the winter.
“There now,” admonished Lane, “don't you begirt tapping your foot, Mrs. Howland. You'll get all feezed up if you don't hold on to yourself.”
Verb
To twist or turn with a screw-like motion; to screw.
Usage- Scotland
- also
- dialectal
- Transitive
- with off
- Examples
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What pushing and crushing Amang the lads and lasses; What squeezing and feezing Wi' ilka ane that passes
For forty years—like Rob the Ranter, I've feezed about my rhymin' chanter' Blawn up the bag, and cock'd my bonnet, And tried to "croon an ault Scots sonnet,"
More examples (1)
The superintendent stated that he had tried it, or examined it, the day before and could not budge or feeze it.
To insinuate.
Usage- Scotland
- broadly
- dialectal
- Figurative
To untwist; to unravel, as the end of a thread or rope.
Usage- Scotland
- dialectal
- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Examples
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In short, Tibbie made maist praiseworthy efforts to feeze her fingers oot o' my loof as lang as I held them fast.
The thread that joins us baith will sune Feeze oot and snap in twa!
More examples (1)
I can't feeze it out among these strange entanglements of circumstance and personalities.
To rub hard; to do a piece of work with passion.
Usage- Scotland
- dialectal
- Figurative
- Obsolete
- Transitive
- with at or up