[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. That fights, able and ready to fight, bearing arms, militant, warlike.
a. of persons, their attributes, etc.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, xiv. 1. Tabernakill propirly is þe mansyon of feghtand men.
c. 1400. An Apology for Lollard Doctrines, 3. Þis fiȝting kirke.
c. 1400. Arthur, 318.
| Þowsandez ten | |
| Of hardy & welle fyghtyng Men. |
c. 1500. Melusine, 128. Alexander, that subdued so many & dyuerse landes, wold not haue wIth hym aboue the nombre of xxti thousand fyghtyng men for one journey ayenst all the world.
160a. Shaks., Ham., III. iv. 113. O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule.
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 59. Since Journey-men will no more work well, then Souldiers fight without a fighting Captain.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 233. The fighting men of the garrison were so much exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs.
fig. 1592. Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 345.
| To note the fighting conflict of her hew, | |
| How white and red, ech other did destroy. |
b. of natural or mechanical agents.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 403.
| By forty dayeȝ wern faren, on folde no flesch styryed | |
| þat þe flod nade al freten with feȝtande waȝeȝ. |
1641. Wilkins, Math. Magick, II. iv. (1648), 173–4. But amongst these fighting images, that in Cardan may deserve a mention, which holding in its hand a golden apple, beautified with many costly Jewels; if any man offered to take it, the statue presently shot him to death.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 1015.
| Into the wilde Expanse, and through the shock | |
| Of fighting Elements, on all sides round | |
| Environ’d wins his way. |
2. Comb.: fighting crab (see quot. 1868); fighting fish, a Siamese fish (Betta pugnax); fighting sandpiper, the ruff (Machetes pugnax).
1868. Wood, Homes without H., iv. 90. The Fighting Crab (Gelasimus bellator).
Hence Fightingly adv., pugnaciously.
1632. Brome, Northern Lasse, I. iii. She frown’d, did she not, and look’d fightingly?
1841. J. T. Hewlett, The Parish Clerk, I. 60. Why should they be so fightingly inclined, when herself and the squire had never had a serious squabble in their married lives?
