Fix, subs. (common).—A dilemma; frequently in conjunction with awful
(q.v.) and regular (q.v.), e.g., an awful fix = a terrible position.
Variants are cornered; up a tree; up a close; under a cloud; in a
scrape. Fr., avoir des mots avec les sergots = to run amuck of the
police.
1837. R. H. Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends, (ed. 1862), p. 405. But,
alas! and alack!—He had stuffed her sack So full that he found
himself quite in a fix.
1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. lxi. It can’t be helped you
know. He ain’t the only one in the same fix.
1858. Shirley Brookes, The Gordian Knot, p. 88. John Claxton, what
a fix I am in. That Mrs. Spencer will never go out of town.
1864. Tangle Talk, p. 271. Just as you are in a capital fix,
exquisitely placed for being made a laughing stock, your friend
will turn round upon you.
1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xxi. Oh, but I could tell you
of worse fixes than that.
Verb (old).—1. To arrest. For synonyms, see Nab and Cop.
1789. G. Parker, Variegated Characters. If any of us was to come in
by ourselves and should happen to take a snooze you’d snitch upon
us and soon have the traps fix us.
2. (American colloquial).—A general verb of action. Everything is fixed
except the meaning of the word itself. The farmer fixes his fences, the
mechanic his work-bench, the seamstress her sewing-machine, the fine
lady her hair, and the schoolboy his books. The minister has to fix his
sermon, the doctor to fix his medicines, the lawyer to fix his brief.
Dickens was requested to ‘un-fix his straps’; eatables are fixed for a
meal; a girl unfixes herself to go to bed, and fixes herself up to go
for a walk. At public meetings it is fixed who are to be the candidates
for office; rules are fixed to govern an institution, and when the
arrangements are made the people contentedly say, ‘Now everything is
fixed nicely.’ [This use is thought by Proctor to have arisen from some
confusion between ‘fingency’ and ‘fixation’: as if the word had the
meaning of the Latin fingo, fingere, instead of that of the Latin figo,
figere. At least there is no use of fix in American which would not
fairly represent the meaning of both.—See Philol. Soc. Trans. for 1865,
p. 188.] The universality of the verb is only equalled by its
antiquity, for, as J. R. Lowell points out, as early as 1675, the
Commissioners of the United Colonies ordered ‘their arms well fixed and
fit for service.’
To fix the ballot box = to tamper with returns.
1842. Dickens, American Notes, ch. x., p. 86. You call upon a
gentleman in a country town, and his help informs you that he is
fixing himself just now, but will be down directly: by which you
are to understand that he is dressing. You inquire, on board a
steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will be ready
soon, and he tells you he should think so, for when he was last
below, they were fixing the tables; in other words, laying the
cloth. You beg a porter to collect your luggage, and he entreats
you not to be uneasy, for he’ll fix it presently, and if you
complain of indisposition, you are advised to have recourse to
Doctor so and so, who will fix you in no time.
1888. Scribner’s Mag. I do hope you’ll like everything; it’s the
first time we ever took boarders, but we try to fix things nice.
Anyhow, or nohow, you can or can’t fix it.—See Anyhow.
To fix one’s flint, verb. phr. (American).—‘To settle one’s hash.’ For
synonyms, see Cook one’s goose.
1835–40. Haliburton, Clockmaker, S., ch. xii. Their manners are
rude, overbearin’, and tyrannical. They want their flints fixed for
’em as we did last war.
Fixings, subs. (American).—A noun of all work. Applied to any and
everything.
1842. Dickens, American Notes, ch. x., p. 86. ‘Will you try,’ said
my opposite neighbour, handing me a dish of potatoes, broken up in
milk and butter, ‘will you try some of these fixings.’
1872. Daily Telegraph, 30 Sept. Still stoutly asserted by some
sceptical Down-Easter to have been an itinerant dealer in hardware
and kitchen fixings from Salem, Mass.
Fix up, verb. phr. (American).—To settle; to arrange. Cf., Fix.
Fiz, or Fizz, subs. (common).—Champagne; sometimes lemonade and
ginger-beer. For synonyms, see Boy.
1864. Punch, vol. XLVII., p. 100. So away we went to supper For
hungry we had grown, And ordered some fizz, which the right thing
is, With a devilled turkey bone.
1869. St. James’ Mag., July. Her great object is to get one of
these fellows to order the champagne. On each bottle of this stuff
disposed of she has a percentage. She terms it fizz, and will
pretend to fall into ecstacies at the prospect of a glass of the
chemical essence of gooseberry sweetened up with tartaric acid and
sugar of lead.
1871. Morning Advertiser, 11 Sept. Shall the Admirals of England
now their former prowess drop, All courage ooze from tarry hands,
like fiz from uncorked ‘pop?’
1879. Justin McCarthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xvii. I can open a bottle
of soda or fizz ... and never as much as wink.
1883. Referee, 22 April, p. 3, col. 3. I have seen you wince when
it has come to your turn to stand treat, and you have been called
upon to pay twelve shillings for a bottle of fizz.
Fiz-Gig, subs. (schoolboys’).—A firework.
Fizzer, subs. (common).—Anything first-rate. Cf., fizzing.
1866. London Miscellany, 19 May, p. 235. If the mare was such a
fizzer why did you sell her?
Fizzing, adj. (common).—First-rate.
English Synonyms.—A1; cheery; clean wheat; clipping; crack; creamy;
crushing; first chop; first class; first-rate, or (in America)
first-rate and a half; hunky; jammy; jonnick; lummy; nap; out-and-out;
pink; plummy; proper; real jam; right as ninepence; ripping; rooter;
rum; screaming; scrumptious; ship-shape; slap-up; slick; splendacious;
splendiferous; to rights; tip-top; true marmalade; tsing-tsing.
French Synonyms.—Aux oiseaux (pop.: very fine, very good); bath or bate
(pop.: tip-top; for origin see under A1); c’est du flan (thieves’: it
is excellent); c’est hurf (general: = true marmalade); c’est un peu ça
(popular); c’est bath aux pommes (cf., bath ante); chenátre (thieves’);
chic or chique (chique is literally a quid of tobacco); chicard,
chicancardo or chicandard (superlatives of chic); chocnoso, chocnosof,
chocnosogue or kosenoff (= crushing; nobby); chouette, chouettard, or
chouettaud (chouette = literally a screech-owl); épatarouflant or
êpatant (general = stunning); farineux (lit. farinaceous); flambant
(lit. blazing, flaming); frais (used ironically); grand ’largue (largue
= offing); mirobolant (fam. and pop. = slap-up); muche (= bully or
ripping); numéro un (i.e., A1); obéliscal or obélisqual (common);
ruisselant d’inouisme (familiar); rup (popular); schpile (popular);
sgoff (popular); snoboye (fam. and pop.); superlificoquentieux (=
splendiferous).
1885. Daily Telegraph, 1 August, p. 2, col. 2. ‘She’ll do fizzing,’
remarked Mr. Menders, regarding the transformed effigy admiringly,
‘to stick up at the head of the barrer.’
Fizzle, subs. (American).—A ridiculous failure; a flash in the pan.
[The figure is adapted from wet powder which burns with a hiss, and
then goes out.] In many of the United States colleges, the term = a
blundering recitation. To hit just one third of the meaning constitutes
‘a perfect fizzle.’—Hall’s College Words. The ‘Brunonian,’ Feb. 24,
1877, defines the word to mean ‘where the student thinks he knows, but
can’t quite express it,’ or ‘he tries to express it, and the professor
thinks he doesn’t quite know.’
1849. Tomahawk, November. Here he could fizzles mark, without a
sigh, And see orations unregarded die.
1851. National Intelligencer, 8 Dec. The speech was as complete a
fizzle as has ever disgraced Congress, and we hope sincerely the
honourable member from Massachusetts will take the lesson to heart.
1865. Letter in the D. Telegraph, 30 March. The famous ‘Jack o’
Clubs,’ from which so much was expected, is a dead fizzle. The half
of the men had to leave the mines and go to the low country for
want of work; and wages, which always were $10 a-day, were reduced
to $80 per month, with board.
1883. Echo, 16 March, p. 4, col. 1. What promised at first to be a
magnificent Parliamentary ‘row’ ended in a mere unsensational
fizzle.
1890. St. James’ Gaz., 1 May, p. 4, col. 2. Altogether it begins to
look as though the terrible demonstrations of down-trodden labour
which were to shake society to its foundations would end in
something like fizzle.
Verb (American).—To fail in reciting; to recite badly. Also (said of an
instructor) to cause one to fail at reciting. At some American colleges
flunk (q.v.) is the common word for an utter failure. To fizzle = to
stumble through at last. In the ‘Yale Literary Messenger,’ ‘Fizzle = To
rise with modest reluctance, to hesitate often, to decline finally;
generally, to misunderstand the question.’ Also to flat out (q.v.).
Four. Far une yappa.
1847. The Yale Banger, 22 Oct. My dignity is outraged at beholding
those who fizzle and flunk in my presence tower above me.
1850. Yale Lit. Mag., p. 321. Fizzle him tenderly, Bore him with
care; Fitted so slenderly, Tutor, beware.