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fey

adjective \ ˈfā \

Definition of fey

1 a chiefly Scotland :fated to die :doomed
b :marked by a foreboding of death or calamity
  • another and lesser man … gave a fey lonely warning
  • —Hodding Carter
2 a :able to see into the future :visionary
  • Not being fey, he never suspected what it would lead to.
b :marked by an otherworldly air or attitude
  • she had that half shy, half fey smile and that birdlike perkiness
  • —A. G. Ogden
c :crazy, touched
3 a :excessively refined :precious
  • a fey, self-indulgent dandy
b :quaintly unconventional :campy
  • … audiences howl at her off-center delivery of fey folk songs and quaint special material.
  • —Howard Teichmann
—

feyly

adverb
—

feyness

noun

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Recent Examples of fey from the Web

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'fey.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Fey is a word that defies its own meaning, since it has yet to even come close to the brink of death after being in our language for well over 800 years. In Old and Middle English it meant "feeble" or "sickly." Those meanings turned out to be fey themselves, but the word lived on in senses related to death, and because a wild or elated state of mind was once believed to portend death, other senses arose from these. The word fay, meaning "fairy" or "elf," may also have had an influence on some senses of "fey." Not until the late 20th century did the word's most recent meanings, "precious" and "campy," find their way onto the pages of the dictionary.

Origin and Etymology of fey

Middle English feye, from Old English fǣge; akin to Old High German feigi doomed and perhaps to Old English fāh hostile, outlawed — more at foe

Other Occult Terms

augury, censor, invocation, lucidity, metempsychosis, mojo, numinous, preternatural, weird, wraith

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