fust

A house in the neighbourhood of Carrollton in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, that was infested by mould after Hurricane Katrina hit the state on 29 August 2005. Mould can give rise to fust (etymology 1, sense 1), or mustiness, in a building.

Borrowed from Old French fust (“wood; bole, tree trunk”) (modern French fût), from Latin fūstis (“knobbed stick, cudgel, club”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew- (“to hit”) or *gʷʰen- (“to strike; to kill, slay”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /fʌst/
• Rhymes: -ʌst

fust (plural fusts)

1. A strong musty smell; mustiness.
   • 1999, Iain Sinclair, “ocean estate [from The Ebbing of Kraft]”, in Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain, editors, Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Pres, →ISBN, page 246:

     the fust of old books & older cheese / nobody loves gossip like these salaried dudes

   • 2003, Philip Gooden, “Incognito”, in Alms for Oblivion, London: Constable, →ISBN:

     Despite having been awake now for more than twenty-four hours – and the comforts of gaol had not been so great that I'd slept quietly there, to say nothing of my troubling dreams – I was curiously refreshed. The brisk air blew away the fogs and fusts of London.

   • 2013, Tanith Lee, “Their Monstrous Minds”, in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, editors, Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, →ISBN:

     One or two wondered then, as if suddenly recalling the outlander, how he would manage, or if he would perish, up there among his unholy modern machineries that puffed out frozen steam to store the deer meat and shot fowl for him, […] "And there were big boxes lugged up there, done up in iron clasps. Cruel-cold earth in those." […] "Like corpse boxes," someone else suggested, down in the half-light, snug fust of the village drinking shop.

2. (architecture) The shaft (main body) of a column.
   • 1851, “Tuscany”, in Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851: Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue. By Authority of the Royal Commission. In Three Volumes, volume III (Foreign States), London: Spicer Brothers, wholesale stationers; W[illiam] Clowes and Sons, printers; contractors to the Royal Commission, 29 New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, and at the Exhibition building, OCLC 906724115, item 109, page 1298, column 2:

     Cherici, Giuseppe, & Sons, Volterra. A large alabaster vase, after the Etrurian style; executed in the exhibitors' manufactory in Volterra, […] The vase is placed on the fust of a column of the Tuscan order.

   • 1871, George Berkeley; Alexander Campbell Fraser, “Journal of a Tour in Italy in 1717, 1718”, in Life and Letters of George Berkeley, D.D. formerly Bishop of Cloyne; and an Account of His Philosophy. With Many Writings of Bishop Berkeley hitherto Unpublished: Metaphysical, Descriptive, Theological by Alexander Campbell Fraser, M.A. Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh (The Works of George Berkeley, D.D.; IV), volume IV, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, OCLC 680396969, page 550:

     Façade of the Benedictines' convent and church wonderfully crowded with ornaments, as likewise the altars generally adorned with twisted pillars flourished all over, and loaden with little puttini, birds, and the like in clusters on the chapiters and between the wreaths along the fusts of the columns.

• fusted (adjective)
• fustily
• fustiness
• fusty

• fuster
• fustian
• fustigate
• fustigation

fust (third-person singular simple present fusts, present participle fusting, simple past and past participle fusted)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To turn mouldy, to decay.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. Newly Imprinted and Enlarged to Almost as Much Againe as it Was, According to the True and Perfect Coppie (the Second Quarto), London: Printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] and are to be sold at his shoppe under Saint Dunstons Church in Fleetstreet, published 1604, OCLC 222308673, [Act IV, scene iv]:

     Sure he that made vs with ſuch large diſcourse / Looking before and after, gaue vs not / That capabilitie and god-like reaſon / To fvſt in vs vnvſed, […]

   • 1852, Jean Palsgrave; Giles du Guez, L’Éclaircissement de la langue Française par Jean Palsgrave, suivi de la grammaire de Giles du Guez. Publiés pour la premiére fois en France par F[rançois] Génin [The Enlightenment of the French Language by Jean Palsgrave, followed by the grammar of Giles du Guez. Published for the first time in France by F[rançois] Génin.] (Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, Deuxième série (Histoire des lettres et des sciences) [Collection of Unpublished Documents on the History of France, Second Series (History of Humanities and Sciences)]; 75), Paris: Imprimerie nationale, OCLC 995589721, page 641, column 2:

     I mowlde, or fust, as corne dothe. Je moisis, sec. conj.

   • 1875, David Picken, “A Lay Sermon. Written during One of the Formerly Periodic Stagnations of the Weaving Trade.”, in Poems and Songs. [...] With a Memoir of the Author, and Notes, Paisley, Renfrewshire: J. & J. Cook, 3 Moss Street, OCLC 503905084, stanza 1, page 33:

     I marvel that the clergy don't propose / A day of fasting and humiliation, / As they did when potatoe crops were fusted;— / We're now much worse, when porridge-pots are rusted.

   • 1970, Zelda Fichandler, “Theatres or Institutions?”, in International Theatre Institute of the United States, editor, Theatre 3: The American Theatre 1969–1970, volume 3, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, OCLC 490299474; reprinted in “Theaters or Institutions?”, in Todd London, editor, An Ideal Theater: Founding Visions for a New American Art, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Communications Group, 2013, →ISBN, page 303:

     Separately and then together, we forged these theaters, these instrumentalities, these constellations of activities, these collective outposts, these—God forgive me!—institutions in order to preserve and re-create, in new forms, the art of theater then fusting in us unused.

   • 1989, Elizabeth Imlay, “Charlotte the Initiate”, in Charlotte Brontë and the Mysteries of Love: Myth and Allegory in Jane Eyre, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN; new edition, Speldhurst, Kent: Imlay Publications, 1993, →ISBN, page 165:

     Later, her [Charlotte Brontë's] simmering resenment at being treated as a drudge in one situation after another while her genius fusted in her unused caused the occasional surprising outburst in her habitual collected behaviour, enabling her to stand her ground against employers.

2. (intransitive) Of wine: to acquire an undesirable musty or woody taste from the cask in which it is stored.
   • [1797?], “Secrets Relative to Wine”, in Valuable Secrets in Arts and Trades: Or, Approved Directions from the Best Artists. [...] Containing Upwards of One Thousand Approved Receipts Relative to Arts and Trades, London: Printed for J. Barker, Russell-Court, Drury-Lane; J. Cattermoul, no. 376, Oxford-Street, and J. Parsons, Paternoster-Row, OCLC 3237452, page 226:

     VI. To prevent wine from fuſting, otherwiſe taſting of the caſk, and to give it both a taſte and flavour quite agreeable. Stick a lemon with cloves as thick as it can hold; hang it by the bung hole in a bag over the wine in the caſk for three or four days, and ſtop it very carefully for fear of its turning dead, if it ſhould get air.

Possibly from Portuguese fusta (“fust”), from Latin fusta (“beam (of wood)”), from fūstis (“knobbed stick, cudgel, club”); compare Middle French fuste.

fust (plural fusts)

1. (nautical, historical) A type of small galley.
   • 1589–1600, Richard Hakluyt, “How Part of the Navie and Armie of the Great Turke Came before the Citie of Rhodes”, in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation (Hakluyt Society; Works, Extra Series), volume V, Glasgow: MacLehose, published 1904, OCLC 312826675; reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, →ISBN, page 16:

     The great hoste abode still till noone or one of the clocke, and then arose, not all, but about 80 or 100 ships, as gallies, galliasses, and fusts: and passed one after another before the towne and haven of Rhodes three miles off, and came to shore in a place nigh to land, called Perambolin, sixe miles from the towne.

   • 1745, “[A Brief Description of a Voyage Performed by Certain Hollanders to and from the East-Indies, with Their Adventures and Success.] The Manner, Custom, Householding, Child-bearing, Sporting and Cleanliness of the Women in Bantam”, in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Consisting of Authentic Writers in Our Own Tongue, which have Not before Been Collected in English, or have Only been Abridged in Other Collections. [...], volume II, London: Printed for and sold by Thomas Osborne of Gray's-Inn, OCLC 833879154, page 414, column 1:

     The reſt of our ſhips hearing us ſhoot in that manner, entered into their boats, and made towards them, rowing hard to the thre Indian fuſts, wherein were at the leaſt 100 men, and ſhot amongſt them with their pieces, […] and we handled them in ſuch ſort, that of 200 men there got not above thirty of them to land; the reſt of their fuſts lay far off and beheld the fight.

   • 1827, Gilbert de Lannoy [i.e., Guillebert de Lannoy], “The Report Made by Sir Gilbert de Lannoy, upon Surveys of Several Cities, Ports, and Rivers, Taken by Him in Egypt and Syria, in the Year of Grace of Our Lord One Thousand Four Hundred and Twenty-two. By Order of the Most High, Most Puissant, and Most Excellent Prince, King Henry of England, Heir and Regent of France; whom God Pardon”, in Archaeologia; or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, volume XXI, London: Printed by J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols, 25, Parliament Street; sold at the Society [of Antiquaries of London]'s apartments in in Somerset-Place; and by Messrs. Nornaville and Fell, Nicol, Sotheby, Wilson, Cadell, Egerton, and Taylor, OCLC 220073875, pages 427–428:

     Sur stands on the coast of Syria, on the sea, twenty-five miles from Acre both by sea and land. Four or five large and long rocks lie in the sea before the city, some of them appearing a little above the water, the rest concealed below it. These rocks form the port of Sur, which admits ships of sixty or eighty tons, but none of a larger size; and all flat-bottomed fusts.

   • 2016, Ghulam A. Nadri, “The Indigo Trade: Local and Global Demand”, in The Political Economy of Indigo in India, 1580–1930: A Global Perspective (European Expansion and Indigenous Response; 22), Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill, →ISBN, ISSN 1873-8974, page 99:

     During the first three decades of the seventeenth century, Portuguese trade from Goa to Portugal and to Gurajat rapidly declined. Pieter van den Broecke, a VOC [Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie – Dutch East India Company] official in Gujarat, reported that whereas there used to come every year from 200 to 300 Portuguese fusts (or fustas, small galleys) to Cambay and Surat, only from 50 to 60 came in 1621, and the goods they carried were also of small value. [Francisco] Pelsaert, too, lamented the declining trade of Cambay by saying that in 1626 only forty merchant fusts arrived with goods of little value and that this was the cause of the decline of Cambay and indeed of all Gujarat.

fust (not comparable)

1. Nonstandard form of first.
   • 1839, Thomas Hood, “The Corresponding Club”, in The Comic Annual, London: A. H. Baily and Co., Cornhill, OCLC 940362463, page 21:

     I allude to charcolling. Theirs Miss Creasy the dress maker after having the fashuns reglarly from Parris for some months was indust in a luv tif to shut her self up solus with the prevaling mode, but luckly the charcole went out fust.

   • 1853 July, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume VII, number XXXVIII, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers, 329 & 331 Pearl Street, Franklin Square, OCLC 969751422, pages 294–295:

     I was standing, one glorious Autumn morning, looking now up to where the crown of the Fall [Horseshoe Falls of the Niagara Falls], illuminated by the early sun, shone like opal, […] I was suddenly roused from a reverie by a sharp voice: "It's a-bilin' and a-sizzling down there fust-rate!"

fust (not comparable)

1. Nonstandard form of first.

• STFU, UTFs

• Rhymes: -ʏst

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fust n (plural fusten, diminutive fustje n)

1. cask (e.g. containing beer)

• fut

fust

1. third-person singular past historic of estre

see estre.

• fu
• fut
• fud (early Old French)

fust

1. third-person singular past historic of estre

• French: fut

From Latin fustis.

fust m (oblique plural fuz or futz, nominative singular fuz or futz, nominative plural fust)

1. wood (material from a plant)
2. wooden beam or plank
3. bole (part of a tree trunk)
   • circa 1176, Chrétien de Troyes, 'Cligès':

     Ausi come escorce sanz fust

     Just like bark without a tree trunk

4. club (weapon)
   • circa 1181, Chrétien de Troyes, Roman de la Charrette:

     Escuz et hiaumes et haubers.
     Nes garantist ne fuz ne fers

     Shields and helmets and armor.
     Couldn't protect neither clubs nor swords

From Proto-Germanic *funstiz, whence also Old English fyst, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pn̥kʷ-stis (“fist”), a derivative of *pénkʷe (“five”). Cognate with Old Frisian fest, Old Saxon fūst (Dutch vuist) and with Russian пясть (pjastʹ, “palm of the hand”), Polish pięść (“fist”), Serbo-Croatian pest (“fist”) and prst (“finger”).

fūst f

1. fist

• German: Faust