Original Definition:
to break wind quietly
Example:
"But the false old trot did so fizzle and fist, that she stunk like a hundred devils, which put the poor fox to a great deal of ill ease, for he knew not to what side to turn himself, to escape the unsavoury perfume of this old womans postern blasts." – François Rabelais (translated by Thomas Urquhart), Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1534
About the Word:
If you are in search of an accurate euphemism for a certain four-letter word, beginning with F, that designates an expulsive bodily function, look no further than fizzle.
For the first several hundred years that this word was in use as a verb in English (since 1533) it only referred to the act of passing wind silently. Fizzle did not begin to refer to making a sputtering sound until the 19th century, at which point the older meaning had, well, fizzled out.
