menacingly wild, savage, or hostile: fierce animals; a fierce look.
2.
violent in force, intensity, etc.: fierce winds.
3.
furiously eager or intense: fierce competition.
4.
Informal. extremely bad or severe: a fierce cold.
Origin: 1250–1300; ME fiers < AF fers, OF fiers (nom.) < L ferus wild, fierce; cf. feral1, ferocious
Related forms:
fiercely, adverb
fierceness, noun
Synonyms: 1.untamed; cruel, fell, brutal; barbarous, bloodthirsty, murderous. Fierce,ferocious,truculent suggest vehemence and violence of temper, manner, or action: fierce in repelling a foe. Ferocious implies fierceness or cruelty, esp. of a bloodthirsty kind, in disposition or action: a ferocious glare; ferocious brutality toward helpless refugees. Truculent suggests an intimidating or bullying fierceness of manner or conduct: His truculent attitude kept them terrified and submissive. 2, 3.furious, passionate, turbulent.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History
fierce
1240, from O.Fr. fers, nom. form of fer, fier "wild, ferocious," from L. ferus "wild, untamed," from PIE base *gwer- "wild, wild animal" (cf. Gk. ther, O.C.S. zveri, Lith. zveris "wild beast"). Originally in Eng. also with a sense of "brave, proud," which died out 16c., but caused the word at first to be commonly used as an epithet, which accounts for the rare instance of a Fr. word entering Eng. in the nom. case.
[feers] 
