- a hand when it is tightly closed with the fingers bent into the palm
- He punched me with his fist.
- She clenched her fists to stop herself trembling.
- He got into a fist fight in the bar.
- He banged a heavy fist on the table.
Extra ExamplesTopics Bodyc1- Diago pounded an angry fist against the wall.
- He closed his fingers to form a fist.
- He punched his fist in the air.
- I managed to duck his flying fists.
- She drew back her fist and threw a punch at his nose.
- She raised her fist in a gesture of defiance.
- She ran at him, her fists flying.
- She was holding a hammer in her fist.
- The man was shaking his fist at us through the window.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- balled
- clenched
- closed
- …
- form
- make
- ball
- …
- ball
- clench
- curl
- …
- fight
- in your fist
- clench your hand into a fist
Word OriginOld English fȳst, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch vuist and German Faust.
Idioms
See fist in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionaryan iron fist/hand (in a velvet glove)
- if you use the words an iron fist/hand when describing the way that somebody behaves, you mean that they treat people severely. This treatment may be hidden behind a kind appearance (the velvet glove).
- They promised that the army would strike with an iron fist at any resistance.
- The iron hand in the velvet glove approach seems to work best with this age group.
make a better, good, poor, etc. fist of something
- (British English, old-fashioned, informal) to make a good, bad, etc. attempt to do something
make/lose money hand over fist
- to make/lose money very fast and in large quantities
Check pronunciation:
fist