Obs. Also 6 foust. [a. OF. fust (mod.F. fût): see FOIST sb.2]
I. 1. A wine-cask.
1481–90. Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.), 85. For xxx. pipes bere, and a toon wyn x.s., the bere x.li. and for the fustes xxx.s.
1601. Househ. Ord. (1790), 295. The Serjant hath for his fee, all the empty foustes of wine spent within the said office, and all the cupboard clothes dampned.
2. ‘A strong smell, as that of a mouldy barrel’ (Johnson, 1755).
Whence in mod. Dicts.
II. 3. (see quot. 1819.) [So F. fût, It. fusto.]
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 35. The Column … diminishing (from the third Part of the Fust upwards).
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, I. 48. They were neither Chanell’d, nor altogether plain; but their Fusts cut into Angles, about the breadth of an usual Channel.
1717. Berkeley, Jrnl. Tour Italy, 27 Jan., Wks. 1871, IV. 550. The altars generally adorned with twisted pillars flourished all over, and loaden with little puttini, birds, and the like in clusters on the chapiters and between the wreaths along the fusts of the columns.
1819. Nicholson, Dict. Archit., Fust, the shaft of a column, or trunk of a pilaster.
