Letter: Feisty reader

THREE times in less than 24 hours I have come across the word ''feisty''; twice in the Independent on Sunday and once on Start the Week (BBC Radio 4).

The Shorter Oxford Dictionary does not know it, nor does the Few Words supplement.

What, if anything, does feisty mean?

Mary Williamson

Thirsk, North Yorkshire

Chambers has it as 'excitable, irritable, touchy; spirited. [From old US dialect ''fist'', a small aggressive dog.]'