fey

fey  (f)

adj.

1.

a. Having or displaying an otherworldly, magical, or fairylike aspect or quality: "She's got that fey look as though she's had breakfast with a leprechaun" Dorothy Burnham.

b. Having visionary power; clairvoyant.

c. Appearing touched or crazy, as if under a spell.

2. Scots

a. Fated to die soon.

b. Full of the sense of approaching death.

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[Middle English feie, fated to die, from Old English fge.]

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feyly adv.

feyness n.

Word History: The history of the words fey and fay illustrates a rather fey coincidence. Our word fay, "fairy, elf," the descendant of Middle English faie, "a person or place possessed of magical properties," and first recorded around 1390, goes back to Old French fae, "fairy," the same word that has given us fairy. Fae in turn comes from Vulgar Latin Fta, "the goddess of fate," from Latin ftum, "fate." If fay goes back to fate, so does fey in a manner of speaking, for its Old English ancestor fge meant "fated to die." The sense we are more familiar with, "magical or fairylike in quality," seems to have arisen partly because of the resemblance in sound between fay and fey.

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fey

Adjective

1. vague and whimsically strange

2. having the ability to look into the future [Old English fæge marked out for death]

Thesaurus

Adj.	1.	fey - slightly insane touched insane - afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement; "was declared insane"; "insane laughter"
	2.	fey - suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness; "thunderbolts quivered with elfin flares of heat lightning"; "the fey quality was there, the ability to see the moon at midday"- John Mason Brown elfin supernatural - not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material; "supernatural forces and occurrences and beings"