Obs. Forms: 6 fistike, (festike, fystike), 6–7 fistick, 7, 9 fistic. [ad. (through med.L. fisticum) Arab. fistuq, fustuq, -aq, a. Pers. pistah, whence ultimately PISTACHIO.] = PISTACHIO. Also, fistic nut, tree.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes, 63. Pistacia are called of the poticaries Fistica, they may be called in english Fistikes or Festike nuttes.
c. 1550. H. Llwyd, The Treasury of Health (1585), C ij. Oyle of Fystikes healeth the hemicrane.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 91 b. The figure of ye fistic tre is almost rounde.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. lviii. 734. The tree which bringeth foorth Fistick Nuts.
1640. Parkinson, Theat. Bot., XVI. xx. 1416. The Fisticke Nut groweth to be a tree of a reasonable large sise in the warme Countries, but very slenderly in ours dispersed into sundry branches.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 300. Fisticks, or rather Pisticks, alluding to the Syrian Word, are Nuts growing in the Knob of the Syrian or Egyptian Turpentine-tree, being so much more wholesome, good and nourishing, by how much they are more sweet, odoriferous, full, big and green.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. lx. (1737), 247. Pistachoes, or Fistick-Nuts.
