Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a breaking of wind.

1645		‘An Encomium’ in Wardroper (1969) 203: The soldier makes his foes to run / With but the farting of a gun; / That’s if he make the bullet whistle, / Else it’s no better than a fizzle.
1598		Florio A worlde of wordes 375: Sloffa, a fizzle, a fiste, a close farte.
1654		Witts Recreations ‘Fancies and Fantasticks’ No. 112: A messe of Non-sense [...] Like a Crablouse with his bag and baggage, / Or like th’ abortive issue of a Fizle.
a.1661		‘Upon the Parliament Fart’ in Rump Poems and Songs I (1662) 63: It is much certain quoth Sir Humphrey Bentwhizle, / That a Round-fart is better than a stinking fiezle.
1668		R. Wild Iter boreale 17: I smell your Fizzle, though it make no Crack.
1672		‘On a Farts’ in Ebsworth Westminster Drolleries (1875) ii 128: The Soldier makes his foes to run, With but the farting of a Gun, That’s if he make the Bullets whistle, Else ’tis no better than a fizle.
1687		Cervantes [trans.] Don Qixote 158: But Sancho that knew his Ass again by the very Scent of a Fizzle, which he let just i’ the nick of time.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Fizzle, a little or low-sounding Fart.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 33: He would give you a Lady’s Fart, a Brewer’s Fart, a Bumkin’s Fart, and Old Woman’s Slur, or a Maiden Fizzle &c.
1714		G. Hunter ‘Androboros’ in Meserve & Reardon Satiric Comedies (1969) 7: A Fizle restrain’d will bounce like a F--t.
1722		Benefit of Farting 1: By Obidiah Fizzle, Groom of the Stool to the Princess of Arse-Mini.
1739		R. Bull Grobianus 208: Now let a Fizzle steal in Silence forth.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Fizzle, an escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1908		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:iv 311: fizzle, n. A breaking of wind.