fey
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: fiction
human-sciences
literature
media
mysticism
philosophy
publishing
sciences
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.
Inflected forms:
form: feyer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: more fey
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: feyest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: most fey
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: fey
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: feys
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: About to die; doomed; on the verge of sudden or violent death.
pos: adj
tags: archaic
dialectal
poetic
examples: Surely the Gods have made him fey, having ordained his destruction and our humbling before these Demons.
Then Fëanor laughed as one fey, and he cried: “None and none! What I have left behind I count now no loss; needless baggage on the road it has proved. Let those that cursed my name, curse me still, and whine their way back to the cages of the Valar! Let the ships burn!”
gloss: Dying; dead.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
gloss: Possessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience.
pos: adj
tags: Ireland
Scotland
gloss: Overrefined, affected.
pos: adj
examples: His interlocutor was whimsical if not downright fey. He pushed his spectacles to the top of his nose. He shoved them into his greying locks like an effeminate racing driver. He gave Pym sherry and put a hand on his backside in order to propel him to a long window that gave on to a row of council houses.
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.
… he did not tell Mary Alonso, who had taken Dell's place as a source of gossip and information, and with whom he went out for drinks on occasion, usually along with Mary's partner, Roberta, a fey, freckly, dark-haired girl, …
Guadalupe was a fey mexicana with long braids and a taste for embroidered Oaxacan blouses and overwrought indigenous jewelry, and also a former university student like Araceli.
Bespoke designer Kirk Miller, who offers a contemporary version at his Soho atelier, says, "A club collar shows that a man pays attention to detail. It's a simple way to communicate elegance." And please don't call it a Peter Pan, the club's fey sister.
Most Ivy League graduates are unaccustomed to pepper spray; perhaps he should spray himself in the face once or twice, to test his tolerance. He should also resist the urge to bring high-end camping equipment to protests—this will make him look fey and elitist.
gloss: Strange or otherworldly.
pos: adj
examples: Gratefully she crooned with them, so inimitably that old Christine Inglis, on her way to early Mass, vowed the girl was fey.
Local opinion held Mr. Underwood to be an intense, profane little man, whose father in a fey fit of humor christened Braxton Bragg, a name Mr. Underwood had done his best to live down.
gloss: Spellbound.
pos: adj
gloss: A fairy.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: Fairy folk collectively.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
Synonyms: fairy
Derived words: feydom
feyly
feyness
Translations: