Obs. [f. FOIST v.1]
1. A cheat, a rogue; a pick-pocket.
1591. Greene, Disc. Coosnage, Pref. 3. The Foist, the picke-pockets (sir reuerence, I meane).
1611. Middleton & Dekker, Roaring Girle, V. i. M.’s Wks. (Bullen), IV. 134. Mol. This braue fellow is no better then a foyst. Omnes. Foyst, what’s that? Mol. A diuer with two fingers, a picke-pocket; all his traine study the figging law, that’s to say, cutting of purses and foysting.
1659. Lady Alimony, V. iii. You shall play no more the sharking foist with me, you fumbling fiddler, you.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Foyst, a Cheat or Rogue.
2. A piece of roguery, trick.
1605. B. Jonson, Volpone, III. ix. Put not your foist’s vpon me, I shall sent ’hem.
1641. ‘Smectymnuus,’ Vind. Answ., vi. 83. Which if you call a foyst, all your owne side are as guilty as our selves.
1654. R. Vilvain, Theorem. Theol., iii. 115. What fine foists, and brazen bolts are thes to bolster a bad caus?
1677. in Coles, Eng.-Lat. Dict.
3. Something foisted in.
a. 1734. North, Exam., III. vi. § 101 (1740), 495. The Author gives the following Speech of May 28, by Way of Foist in the Place of that before of the 232 of May.
