Citations:fig

good fig, fine fig

 * mention, useful for etymology
 * 1995, Christine Ammer, Fruitcakes & Couch Potatoes: and Other Delicious Expressions, BookBaby (ISBN 9781620959213)
 * The term fig leaf also is occasionally transferred to anything intended to hide something indecorous or indecent. (However, the expressions in full fig and in fine fig, used from about the mid-17th century to mean &quot;dressed up&quot; and &quot;in  excellent condition" have nothing to do with the fig or its leaves but are variants of the obsolete word feague and the Germanic fegen, meaning to polish.)


 * fine fig
 * 2011, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Murder in a Cathedral: A Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mystery, Poisoned Pen Press Inc (ISBN 9781615950621), page 72:
 * He essayed some damage limitation. 'The rags should be very glad, Jack. We'll be in a box, and I should think Canon Fedden-Jones's friends are likely to be very formally dressed.' 'Excellent. If you want me in fine fig, you will get me in fine fig.'


 * full fig
 * 1963, "Dance Macabre" in Nation, page 74:
 * From the front they are elegant. From the back they spell out I984, workaday and robot~ish. They are followed by ballroom dancers. Like the first lot, these men are in full fig, but on the backs of their tails they also wear numbers.
 * 2013, Fodor's Travel Guides, Fodor's Amsterdam: with the Best of the Netherlands (ISBN 9780891419594):
 * Pomp and decorum are in full fig every third Tuesday of September, when Queen Beatrix arrives at the 13th-century Ridderzaal in a golden coach to open the new session of Parliament.

soap-making sense of fig or figging

 * 1917, William Herbert Simmons, Soap: Its Composition, Manufacture and Properties, page 49:
 * [...(] containing a fair proportion of solid fatty acids) will give figging soaps; or the figging effect may be brought about by mixing a small proportion, ...