A.Word.A.Day --fey

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Jul 16, 2012

This week's theme
Short words

This week's words
fey
coze
fisc
cote
purl

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Good things come in small packs. And this week we have picked words that are short. Their small size does not mean that they are weak. In fact, that is their strength.

These words are full of juice. They pack quite a punch -- they do the job in just a few key strokes. You can say a lot with them, more than you can with long words, e.g. you might find them of use when you send out a tweet or a text.

Just like the words this week, each word (bar the last) in this brief is one syllable.

fey

PRONUNCIATION:

(fay)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Strange; unconventional; otherworldly.
2. Doomed.
3. Able to see the future.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old English faege (fated to die). Earliest documented use: before the twelfth century.

USAGE:

"At times, the book The Patron Saint of Eels seems a little fey; perhaps the made-up miracle makes its moral point a little too easily."
Lisa Gorton; The Patron Saint of Eels; The Age (Melbourne, Australia); Apr 16, 2005.

See more usage examples of fey in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)

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