fig

Meanings

Noun

• A fruit-bearing tree or shrub of the genus Ficus that is native mainly to the tropics.
• The fruit of the fig tree, pear-shaped and containing many small seeds.
• A small piece of tobacco.
• The value of a fig, practically nothing; a fico; a whit.
• a raisin (dried grape)
• Abbreviation of figure
• A person's figure; dress or appearance.
• The piece of ginger root used in figging.

Verb

• To insult with a fico, or contemptuous motion.
• To put into the head of, as something useless or contemptible.
• To develop, or cause (a soap) to develop, white streaks or granulations.
• To move suddenly or quickly; rove about.
• To dress; to get oneself up a certain way.
• To insert a ginger root into the anus, vagina or urethra of (a horse): to perform figging upon; to feague, to feak.

Origin

• From Middle English fige, fygge (also fyke, from Old English fīc, see fike), borrowed from Anglo-Norman figue, borrowed from Old French figue, from Old Occitan figa, from Vulgar Latin *fīca ("fig"), from Latin fīcus ("fig tree"), from a pre-Indo European language, perhaps Phoenician 𐤐𐤂 (compare Ancient Hebrew פַּגָּה ("early fallen fig"), Classical Syriac ܦܓܐ, dialectal Arabic فَجّ, فِجّ). (Another Semitic root (compare Akkadian 𒈠) was borrowed into Ancient Greek as σῦκον (whence English sycophant; Boeotian τῦκον) and Armenian as թուզ.) The soap-making sense derives from the resemblance of the granulations in and texture of the soap to those of a fig. fico.
• Variation of fike.
• See figging.