fisticuffs

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈfɪs.tɪ.kʌfs/

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fisticuffs pl (plural only)

1. plural of fisticuff
2. (plural only, informal) An impromptu fight with the fists, usually between only two people.
   • 1686, Nathaniel Johnston, “III: That the People are not the Original of Authority and Government”, in The Excellency of Monarchical Government, Eſpecially of the Engliſh Monarchy , London: T. B. for Robert Clavel, page 19:

     So he obſerves that all ſimple Governments are apt to ſome evil that is peculiar and conſequential to their Nature, as he inſtanceth in a Kingdom changed into Monarchy abſolute, by which he means that which we now call Tyranny; Ariſtocracy into Oligarchy, and Democracy into Beſtial Chirocracy, when the Seditious of people prevail more by Fiſticuffs than reaſon: […]

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Virginibus Puerisque”, in Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers:

     People who share a cell in the Bastile […] if they do not immediately fall to fisticuffs, will find some possible ground of compromise.

   • 1890, Edmondo de Amicis, translated by Caroline Tilton, Holland and Its People, Chapter XII:

     […] , his head all scarred with the sticks and fisticuffs which he had got in the taverns at Utrecht, […]

3. (plural only, sports, dated) Bare-knuckled boxing, a form of boxing done without boxing gloves or similar padding.
   • 1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, “Chapter XVII”, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, , published 1870, →OCLC:

     In his college days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had known professors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, […]

• (informal: fight): brawl, fight, fist-fight, punch-up
• (bare-knuckled boxing): prizefighting

• fist
• fisticuff
• fisticuffer

• boxing
• fighting