Word of the Day

: June 9, 2014

faze

verb FAYZ

What It Means

: to disturb the composure of : disconcert, daunt

faze in Context

My grandfather was a stolid individual who was not easily fazed by life's troubles.

"Those comments might faze some players, but Lee's optimism was a trademark the past three seasons at USC and his happy-go-lucky attitude persisted even while analysts raised doubts." - Scott Wolf, Whittier Daily News (California), May 6, 2014

Did You Know?

"Faze" is a youngster among English words, relatively speaking; it first appeared in English in the early 1800s. That may not seem especially young, but consider that when "faze" first showed up in print in English, the works of Shakespeare were already over 200 years old, the works of Chaucer over 400 years old, and the Old English epic Beowulf was at least 800 years old. "Faze" is an alteration of the now-rare verb "feeze," which has the obsolete sense "to drive (someone or something) away" and which, by the 1400s, was also being used with the meaning "to frighten or put into a state of alarm." "Feeze" ("fesen" in Middle English and "fēsian" in Old English) is first known to have appeared in print in the late 800s, making it older than even the oldest extant copy of Beowulf in manuscript.