Chapter Fern Seed to Fiacre of F by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Fess (Latin, fascia, a band or covering for the thighs). In heraldry, the fess is a band drawn horizontally across the shield, of which it occupies one - third. It represents the band which was worn by knights low down across the hips.

Fest A pledge, Festing-man, a surety to another. Festing-penny, a penny given in earnest to secure a bargain. (Anglo-Saxon, festing, an act of confidence, an entrusting.)

Fetch A wraith - the disembodied ghost of a living person. (See Fetiche.)

"Fetches ... most commonly appear to distant friends and relations at the very instant preceding the death of those they represent " - Brand: Popular Antiquities (Death Omens).

Fetches Excuses, tricks, artifices. (Saxon.)

"Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?
They have travelled all the night? Mere fetches."
Shakespeare: King Lear, ii:4.

Fetiche or Fetish. The African idol, the same as the American Manitou. The worship of this idol is called Fetichism or Fetishism. (Portuguese, fetisso, magician, fairy, oracle.)
    Almost anything will serve for a fetiche: a fly, a bird, a lion, a fish, a serpent, a stone, a tree struck by lightning, a bit of metal, a shell; but the most potent of all fetiches is the rock Tabra.
   The fetiche or fetish of the bottle. The imp drunkenness, or drunkenness itself.

Fetter Lane is probably feuterer-lane. A feuterer is a keeper of dogs, and the lane has always been famous for dog-fanciers. Howel, with less probability, says it is Fewtor Lane, i.e. the lane of fewtors or worthless fellows who were for ever loitering about the lane on their way to the gardens. Faitour is an archaic word for a worthless fellow, a lazy vagabond, from the Norman-French.

Fettle as a verb, means to repair; to smoothe; as an adjective, it means well-knit, all right and tight. It is connected with our word feat, the French faire, the Latin facere.
   Fettled ale, in Lancashire, means ale warmed and spiced.

Feu de Joie (French). A running fire of guns on an occasion of rejoicing.

Feud meaning "hatred," is the Saxon fæhth (hatred); but feud, a "fief," is the Teutonic fee-odh (trust-land). (See below.)

Feudal or Feodal (2 syl.) In Gothic odh means "property," hence odh-all (entire property); Flemish, udal. By transposition we get all-ohd, whence our allodium (absolute property claimed by the holders of fiefs); and by combining the words fee and odh we get fee-odh, feodh, or feod (property given by way of fee for services conferred). (Pontoppidan.)

Feudal System (The). A system founded on the tenure of feuds or fiefs, given in compensation for military service to the lord of the tenants.

Feuillants A reformed Cistercian order instituted by Jean de la Barrière in 1586. So called from the convent of Feuillans, in Languedoc, where they were established in 1577.
   The club of the Feuillants, in the French Revolution, composed of moderate Jacobins. So called because the convent of the Feuillants, near the Tuileries, was their original club-room (1791-2).

Feuilleton [feu-ye-ton ]. A fly-sheet. Applied to the bottom part of French newspapers, generally devoted to a tale or some other light literature.

"The daily [French] newspapers all had feuilletons with continued stories in them." - Hale: Ten-times One, chap. viii. p. 125.

Fever-lurdan or Fever-lurgan. A fit of idleness. Lurden means a block-head. (French, lourd, heavy, dull, thick-headed; lourdand, a blockhead.)