fiend
/ˈfiːnd/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
obsolete/fɛnd/
fiend noun: a devil or demon; a malignant or diabolical being; an evil spirit.
Noun
fiend (plural fiends)
- A devil or demon; a malignant or diabolical being; an evil spirit.
- what God or Feend, or ſpirit of the earth,
Or Monſter turned to a manly ſhape,
Or of what mould or mettel he be made, […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC... - Many hold too that he was acquainted with forbidden arts, and used to carry on an intercourse with the fiends and old women that raised storms, and such like.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 315
- Synonyms:
- monster
- what God or Feend, or ſpirit of the earth,
- A very evil person.
- An enemy; a foe.
- We waited for our fiend to arrive.
- The enemy of mankind, specifically, the Devil; Satan.
- He proffered a pact to Satan, calling upon the Fiend and working himself into a frenzy - but his infernal majesty failed to respond.1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 119
- At the confirmation ceremony the bishop would lay his hands on the child and tie around its forehead a linen band […]. This was believed to strengthen him against the assaults of the fiend […]1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 35
- An addict or fanatic.
- dope fiend
- He's been a jazz fiend since his teenage years.
Verb
fiend (third-person singular simple present fiends, present participle fiending, simple past and past participle fiended)
fiend meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
fiend in Tamil
- கூளி, கொடுமையாளர், பேயுரு
fiend in Urdu
- عدو, دشمن, شیطان
fiend in Bengali
- fiend, ghost
- খবিশ khobiś
fiend in Malayalam
- devil, demon, evil spirit
- പിശാച്, ഭൂതം, പിണി, ചെകുത്താൻ, ശയിത്താൻ, മറുനാ
- beast, brute, villain
- പിശാച്, മഹാദുഷ്ടൻ, മഹാക്രൂരൻ, ദുഷ്പുരുഷൻ, വൃഷലൻ, വൃഷളൻ
- addict, abuser, user
- ദുശ്ശീലത്തിനടിമ, ആസക്തൻ, അത്യാസക്തൻ, അടിമ, മരുന്നുകഴിക്കാരൻ, ഔഷധപ്രയോജകൻ
- devotee, enthusiast, maniac
- അത്യാസക്തൻ, ഏകവിഷയഭ്രാന്തൻ, ആരാധകൻ, ഭക്തൻ, മതഭ്രാന്തൻ, അടിമ
More languagesFewer languages
- fiend in Kannada
- ಧೂರ್ತ, ದೆವ್ವ, ಪಿಶಾಚಿ, ಚಟದವ
- fiend in Sanskrit
- पिशाच piśācá
- fiend in Arabic
- الْأَلَدُّ الْخَصِم al-ʔaladdu l-ḵaṣim, مَهْوُوْس mahwuws
Examples of fiend in a sentence
- I take him for some fiend, I wiss. — Grim, the Collier of Croydon, author unknown.
- Like this one time, this fiend approached me and Meth while we were selling.
- I dished out bags to fiends and snatched their money efficiently.
Synonyms of fiend
Forms of fiend
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | fiends |
| alternative form | fend |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | fiends |
| present participle | fiending |
| past participle | fiended |
| past | fiended |
Origin of fiend
From Middle English fend, feend (“enemy; demon”), from Old English fēond (“enemy”), Proto-West Germanic *fijand, from Proto-Germanic *fijandz. Cognates Cognate with Scots fient (“fiend”), Saterland Frisian Fäind (“enemy, fiend, foe”), Cimbrian faint (“enemy, fiend”), Dutch vijand (“enemy”), German Feind (“enemy, fiend, foe”), Vilamovian faeind, fajnd (“enemy”), Yiddish פֿײַנד (faynd), פֿײַנט (faynt, “enemy”), Danish fjende (“adversary, enemy, foe”), Icelandic fjandi (“enemy; fiend, demon, devil”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish fiende (“enemy”), Old Norse fjándi (“enemy; devil”), Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐌰𐌽𐌳𐍃 (fiands), 𐍆𐌹𐌾𐌰𐌽𐌳𐍃 (fijands, “enemy, foe”). The Old Norse and Gothic terms are present participles of the corresponding verbs fjá/𐍆𐌹𐌾𐌰𐌽 (fijan, “to hate”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate”) (compare Sanskrit पीयति (pī́yati, “(he) reviles”)).
Words formed from fiend
Words that rhyme with fiend
Questions about fiend
- What does fiend mean?
- Fiend means a devil or demon; a malignant or diabolical being; an evil spirit.
- What is fiend in Tamil?
- Fiend in Tamil is கூளி, கொடுமையாளர், பேயுரு. See Fiend meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is fiend?
- Fiend can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce fiend?
- Fiend is pronounced /ˈfiːnd/.
- What is the plural of fiend?
- The plural of fiend is fiends.
Words near fiend in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fiend (page history and authors); fiend (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fiend (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); খবিশ (Bengali) (page history and authors); fiend (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); fiend (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); पिशाच (Sanskrit) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-fiend.ogg.
Cite this entry: “fiend.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fiend. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.