[f. next vb.]
1. The action of breaking wind quietly.
1598. Florio, Sloffa, a fizzle, a fiste, a close farte.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Fizzle, a little or low-sounding Fart.
1739. R. Bull, trans. Dedekindus’ Grobianus, 208.
| Now let a Fizzle steal in Silence forth, | |
| (Silent as Chaos before Motion’s Birth). |
1836–48. B. D. Walsh, Aristoph. Knights, II. iv.
| They bought a lot, and made a tun | |
| Of soup to wet their whistles; | |
| And then in court they poisoned one | |
| Another with their fizzles. |
b. The action of hissing or sputtering.
1842. Barham, Ingold. Leg., Auto-du-Fé.
| Whose beards—this a black, that inclining to grizzle— | |
| Are smoking, and curling, and all in a fizzle. |
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xiii. 118. The chicken and ham had a cheerful and joyous fizzle in the pan.
2. A failure or fiasco; U.S. college slang, a failure in recitation or examination.
1846. Yale Banger, 10 Nov., in Hall, Coll. Words & Cust. (1851), 130. To get just one third of the meaning right constitutes a perfect fizzle.
1884. L’pool Daily Post, 13 Sept., 5/7. The affair will be a simple fizzle.
