fae
fae is the alternative spelling of fey.
Meaning of fey
Adjective
fey (comparative feyer or more fey, superlative feyest or most fey)
- About to die; doomed; on the verge of sudden or violent death.
- Surely the Gods have made him fey, having ordained his destruction and our humbling before these Demons.1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, chapter 18, in The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC
- Dying; dead.
- Synonyms:
- lifeless, moribund, asleep, at rest, blessed, cadaverous, clay-cold, deceased, breathless, resting
- Possessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience.
- Synonyms:
- psychic, second-sighted, sibylline
- Overrefined, affected.
- His interlocutor was whimsical if not downright fey. He pushed his spectacles to the top of his nose. He shoved them into his greying locks like an effeminate racing driver. He gave Pym sherry and put a hand on his backside in order to propel him to a long window that gave on to a row of council...1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy
- Synonyms:
- effete, stagy, affected, recherché, hoity-toity, overrefined, pansified, precious, pretentious, smug
- Strange or otherworldly.
- Gratefully she crooned with them, so inimitably that old Christine Inglis, on her way to early Mass, vowed the girl was fey.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 186
- Synonyms:
- ethereal, mystical, supernatural, transcendental
- Spellbound.
- Synonyms:
- enchanted, spellbound
Pronoun
fae (gender-neutral third-person-singular nominative, oblique and possessive adjective faer, possessive pronoun faers, reflexive faerself)
- A gender-neutral third-person singular subject pronoun, equivalent to singular they, and coordinate with gendered pronouns he and she.
- Vandikas' parents, for example, haven't yet fully embraced the concept. Faer mother once asked faer to help her understand how fae would like her to talk about faer. Fae was encouraged, but faer mother's use of the pronouns didn't last – maybe, fae said, because it was such a foreign concept to the...2016 September 22, Kim Zarzour, “Language Matters”, in Parkdale Villager, Parkdale, Toronto, ON, page 15
- Fae had decked faerself in a modest amount of cheap jewelry, faer makeup inexpertly applied.2022, Novae Caelum, The Truthspoken Heir: The Stars and Green Magics - Season One, unnumbered page
Noun capitalized: FAE
FAE (plural FAEs)
- Initialism of fuel-air explosive (“thermobaric weapon”).
- Initialism of fuel-air explosion.
- Initialism of field applications engineer.
- Initialism of fundamental attribution error.
- Initialism of fetal alcohol effects.
Forms of fae
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more fae |
| superlative | most fae |
| Noun | |
| plural | fae |
| plural | faes |
| plural | FAEs |
| Pronoun | |
| gender-neutral | third-person-singular nominative |
| adjective oblique possessive | faer |
| possessive pronoun without-noun | faers |
| reflexive | faerself |
Origin of fae
From Old French fae, from Medieval Latin fāda. The use of the pronoun appears c. 2013.
Words formed from fae
Questions about fae
- What does fae mean?
- Fae means a gender-neutral third-person singular subject pronoun, equivalent to singular they, and coordinate with gendered pronouns he and she.
- What is fae the alternative spelling of?
- Fae is the alternative spelling of fey.
- What part of speech is fae?
- Fae can be a pronoun or a noun.
Words near fae in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fae (page history and authors); FAE (page history and authors); fey (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “fae.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fae. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.