Relating to or characteristic of boxing and fist-fighting; an alternative form emphasizing the physical nature of pugilism.
From fistic with the additional suffix -al, creating an emphatic adjective form. This double-suffix construction was more common in older English but is now largely archaic.
This word is basically the Victorian equivalent of adding 'mega-' or 'ultra-' to something—it's the old way of saying 'really, truly about fist-fighting' and sounds delightfully formal about something quite rough!
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