Foist v.¹

[prob. ad. Du. dial. vuisten to take in the hand, f. vuist fist; cf. Ger. dial. fäusten.

  The Du. word now means to play at a game in which one player holds some coins in his hand, and the others guess at their number (Prof. Gallée).]

  † 1.  trans. (Dicing). To palm (a ‘flat’ or false die) so as to be able to introduce it when required. Also intr. to cheat by this means (in quot. 1545 app. used loosely). To foist in: to introduce (the flat) surreptitiously when palmed. Obs.

1545.  Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 54. If they be true dise, what shyfte wil they make to set ye one of them with slyding, with cogging, with foysting, with coytinge as they call it.

c. 1550.  Dice-Play, C jb. R. What shift haue they to bring the flat in & out? M. A ioly fine shifte, y^t properly is called foysting, & it is nothing but a sleight to cary easely within the hand as often as the foister list. So y^t when either he or his partener shall cast y^e dice, the flat comes not abrod til he haue made a great hande, and won as much as him list. Ibid., C ij. If happely this young scholler haue not so redy and so skilful an eye, to deserue the flat at euery time that hee is foysted in.

1565.  Harding, in Jewel, Def. Apol. (1611), 127. Through Foisting and Cogging their Die, and other false play, these new perilous teachers deceive many poor souls, and rob them of the sure simplicity of their faith.

  † 2.  intr. To practise roguery, to cheat. Obs. Cf. COG v.³

1584.  R. Wilson, Three Ladies Lond., I. A iij b.

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.

  † b.  trans. To cheat (a person) out of. Obs. Cf. COG v.³ 3 b.

1622.  Fletcher, Sea Voy., I. iii. If I be foysted and jeer’d out of my goods!

  † 3.  To put forth or allege fraudulently. Obs. Cf. COG v. 6.

a. 1640.  W. Fenner, Sacrif. Faithf. (1648), 35. Men must take heed that they foyst not the name of Christ: that they foyst not a ticket to say that Christ sent them, when it is their own selfe-love, and their own lust that sends them.

1678.  Marvell, Growth Popery, Wks. I. 450. Some of them at last, growing wiser, by foisting a counterfeit donation of Constantine, and wresting another donation from our Saviour, advanced themselves in a weak, ignorant, and credulous age, to that Temporal and Spiritual Principality that they are seized of.

  b.  To introduce surreptitiously or unwarrantably into; also with in adv.

1563–87.  Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 776/2. Unlesse it hath since happened, by some fraudulent misdealing of mine enemies, there be any thing foysted into them, or corruptly corrected.

1570.  T. Norton, trans. Nowel’s Catech. (1853), 173. Into this madness are they driven by a blind greediness, and desire to shift and foist in the bishop of Rome to be head of the church in earth, in the stead of Christ.

1641.  Shute, Sarah & Hagar (1649), 76. A rude and ungodly familiarity, not only with the name of God (foisting it up and down in common communication and oathes).

1676.  W. Row, Contin. Blair’s Autobiog., xii. (1848), 372. Some scruped to take it, because a general and ambiguous clause was foisted into the Oath of Allegiance anent the King’s supremacy in all matters.

1704.  Swift, T. Tub, xi. (1709), 127. He met with a Passage near the Bottom (whether foisted in by the Transcriber, is not known) which seemed to forbid it.

1836.  Lytton, Athens (1837), I. 275. The various undetected interpolations and alterations supposed to be foisted into the Odyssey may have originated such detailed points of difference as present the graver obstacles to this conjecture.

1861.  Beresf. Hope, Eng. Cathedr. 19th. C., 73. The zeal of San Carlo Borromeo has foisted in subsidiary altars, to the detriment of the grand simplicity of its first plan.

1889.  Jessopp, Coming of Friars, iii. 156. Richard de Marisco, one of King John’s profligate councillors, who was eventually foisted into the see of Durham, gave the Abbey of St. Alban’s the tithes of Eglingham, in Northumberland, to help them to make their ale better—‘taking compassion upon the weakness of the convent’s drink,’ as the chronicler tells us.

  c.  To palm or put off; to fasten or fix stealthily or unwarrantably on or upon; occas. to father (a composition) upon: rarely with off.

1599.  Marston, Sco. Villanie, I. iii. 182.

1633.  Massinger, Guardian, III. vi.

1641.  Milton, Pret. Episc. (1851), 79. The unskilfull fraud of him that foisted this Epistle upon Ignatius.

1772–84.  Cook, Voy. (1790), VI. 1971. We may contradict the ignorant assertions foisted on the public by editors of publications of the like kind with this.

1841.  S. Warren, Ten Thous. a Year, III. i. 18. It was presumption in Mr Delamere to attempt to foist himself upon a borough with which he had no connexion, and done with a wanton and malicious determination to occasion expense and annoyance to Mr Titmouse.

1849.  C. Brontë, Shirley, I. vii. 157. Each lady-contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket a month, to sew for it, and to foist off its contents on a shrinking male public.

1879.  Sala, Paris herself again (1880), II. iii. 34. Not only are exorbitant prices exacted for everything you purchase, but you have inferior articles foisted on you while being charged for the best.

  † d.  To remove surreptitiously out of. Obs.^–1

1658.  Bramhall, Consecr. Bps., vii. 162–3. If there be any thing of foisting in the case, there is rather something foisted out of the former Edition, then foisted in.

  † 4.  To put (a person) off with something inferior.

1602.  Life T. Cromwell, I. iii. 85.

  † 5.  intr. for refl. To intrude oneself into. With away: To slip off, vanish. Obs.

1603.  H. Crosse, Vertue’s Commonwealth (1878), 66. These beg no place, nor foist into office, but if it come, they vnwillingly hold it, and be no whit the more puft vp in opinion.

1664.  Cotton, Scarron., I. (1776), 36.

  6.  intr. slang. (See quot.).

1585.  Fleetwood, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. I. II. 303. Note that ffoyste is to cutt a pockett, nyppe is to cutt a purse, lyft is to robbe a shoppe or a gentilmans chamber, shave is to ffylche a clooke, a sword, a sylver sponne or such like, that is negligentlie looked unto.

1785.  Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Foyst, to pick a pocket.

  Hence Foisted ppl. a.; Foisting vbl. sb. and ppl. a.

1586.  Newton, trans. Daneau’s Diceplay, vi. As many foysting Coseners and deceiptfull Packers in playing both can doe and vse to doe.

1587.  Golding, De Mornay, xxiv. 364. If it be possible for a booke to bee preserued from falsifying ana foisting what booke shal y^t be but the Byble?

1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xv. § 21. The state thus standing, and a daughter borne, Philip was saluted and proclaimed King, no other right alleaged then this foisted and falsely termed fundamentall law Salique.

1628.  R. S., Counter Scuffle, lviii.

1631.  Mabbe, Celestina, IX. 105. You well enough perceive her foystings, and her flatteries.

1641.  ‘Smectymnuus,’ Vind. Answ., v. 70. Bishop Downham himselfe, without the bold foysting in (to use the Remonstrants words) of a Parenthesis into the Text, cannot make this interpretation good.

a. 1687.  Cotton, Poet. Wks. (1765), 18.