fey

adj

/feɪ/

Etymology

From Middle English feye (“fated to die”), from Old English fǣġe (“doomed to die, timid”), from Proto-West Germanic *faigī, from Proto-Germanic *faigijaz (“cowardly, wicked”), from Proto-Indo-European *peyk- (“ill-meaning, bad”). Akin to Old Saxon fēgi, whence Dutch veeg (“doomed, near death”), Old High German feigi (“appointed for death, ungodly”) whence German feige (“cowardly”), Old Norse feigr (“doomed”) whence the Icelandic feigur (“doomed to die”), Old English fāh (“outlawed, hostile”). More at foe.

derived from *peyk-✻
inherited from *faigijaz✻
inherited from *faigī✻
inherited from fǣġe
inherited from feye — “fated to die”

Definitions

1
About to die
About to die; doomed; on the verge of sudden or violent death.
- Surely the Gods have made him fey, having ordained his destruction and our humbling before these Demons.
Dying
Dying; dead.
Possessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience.
›+ 9 more definitionsshow fewer
1. 4
  Overrefined, affected.
  - Hoffman does not rely on his talent to carry him through a role. He spent five and a half months transmuting himself into Capote. … He lost 40 pounds and practiced the inscrutable voice and fey mannerisms for an hour or two every day.
  - He'd stand at the board making jokes the kids didn't understand, improvising fey little couplets of dactylic verse.
2. 5
  Strange or otherworldly.
  - Gratefully she crooned with them, so inimitably that old Christine Inglis, on her way to early Mass, vowed the girl was fey.
3. Spellbound.
4. Magical or fairylike.
5. A fairy.
6. Fairy folk collectively.
7. Alternative form of pe (“Semitic letter”).
8. 11
  To cleanse.
  - to fey a drain or ditch
9. A surname.

The neighborhood

synonymfairy

Derived

feydom, feyly, feyness

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for fey. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA