Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
adj
About to die; doomed; on the verge of sudden or violent death.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, dialectal, poetic
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: accursed, undone, condemned, cursed, sunk, cussed, damned, dead meat, doomed, done, fey, finished, ill-fated, lost, sentenced
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Dying; dead.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: lifeless, moribund, asleep, at rest, blessed, cadaverous, clay-cold, deceased, resting, decomposed, defunct, departed, expired, extinct, fey, gone, good, inanimate, inert, kaput, killed, late, living impaired, low, no longer with us, no more, perished, reposing, six feet deep, six feet under, stiff, unalive, unalived, wasted, whilom, with God
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Possessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Ireland, Scotland
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: psychic, second-sighted, sibylline
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Overrefined, affected.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: effete, stagy, affected, fey, recherché, hoity-toity, overrefined, pansified, precious, pretentious, smug, stilted, theatrical, Woosterian
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Strange or otherworldly.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: ethereal, mystical, supernatural, transcendental
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Spellbound.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: enchanted, spellbound
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Magical or fairylike.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
name
A surname.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A fairy.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
Topics: fiction, human-sciences, literature, media, mysticism, philosophy, publishing, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Fairy folk collectively.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Alternative form of pe (“Semitic letter”).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of, alternative
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To cleanse.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: UK, dialectal, obsolete, transitive
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adjective satellite
suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness- John Mason Brown
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Synonyms: elfin
Antonyms: none provided
adjective satellite
slightly insane
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: touched(p)
Antonyms: none provided
History
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.
From Middle English faie, fei (“a place or person possessed with magical properties”), from Middle French feie, fee (“fairy", "fae”), from Old French fae, from Medieval Latin fāda. More at fairy.
Inherited from Middle English feien (“to cleanse”), from Old Norse fægja (“to cleanse, polish”), from Proto-Germanic *fēgijaną (“to decorate, make beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *pōḱ-, *pēḱ- (“to clean, adorn”). Cognate with Swedish feja (“to sweep”), Danish feje (“to sweep”), German fegen (“to cleanse, scour, sweep”), Dutch vegen (“to sweep, strike”). More at feague, fake, fair.
Across languages
40 source translations are retained for this English entry.
