Word.ws English Dictionary

fife

/ˈfaɪf/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Scotland/ˈfʌɪf/

fife noun: a small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music.

fife: a small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military...
Image: User Kevin Saff on en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

fife (plural fifes)

  1. A small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music

Verb

fife (third-person singular simple present fifes, present participle fifing, simple past and past participle fifed)

  1. To play this instrument.

Numeral

fife

  1. Used instead of five in radio communications, especially NATO and ICAO, to avoid confusion with fire or nine.
    • “Change course to two fife zero and reduce height to fifteen hundred feet.” That “fife,” thought Alan, sounded very affected; but it had a good survival value in a noisy background.1963, Arthur C Clarke, chapter 6, in Glidepath, New York: Simon and Schuster, page 66

Proper noun capitalized: Fife

Fife

  1. A traditional county of Scotland succeeded by Fife Region in 1975, situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with landward boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire.
    • Ross: Will you to Scone?
      Macduff: No, cousin, I'll to Fife.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    Synonyms:
    Fifeshire
  2. A council area of Scotland, one of 32 created in 1996.
  3. An unincorporated community in McCulloch County, Texas, named after Fife in Scotland.
  4. An unincorporated community in Goochland County, Virginia, named after the owner of the village site.
  5. A city in Pierce County, Washington, possibly named after William J. Fife.
  6. A surname.

fife meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

fife in Hindi

फाइफ

fife in Tamil

ஃபைஃப்

fife in Marathi

फायफ

fife in Urdu

چوٹل بانسری
More languagesFewer languages
fife in Telugu
ఫైఫ్
fife in Malayalam
ഫൈഫ്
fife in Kannada
ಫೈಫ್
fife in Punjabi
ਫ਼ਾਈਫ਼, ਫਾਈਫ
fife in Gujarati
ફાઈફ
fife in Nepali
मुरलि murali
fife in Tagalog
tipano

Synonyms of fife

Forms of fife

Noun
pluralfifes
Verb
third-person singular presentfifes
present participlefifing
past participlefifed
pastfifed

Plural of fife: fifes

Origin of fife

From German Pfeife (“whistle, smoking pipe”). Doublet of pipe.

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic Fìobha, said to date back to the eponym Fib, one of the seven sons of the legendary Pictish king Cruithne. Possibly related to the Uip attested in the Pictish kings lists, in turn possibly related to the Latin Vepogenus, in which the first element is the Proto-Brythonic predecessor of Welsh gwep (“face”).

Words formed from fife

Phrases with fife

Words that rhyme with fife

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fife

What does fife mean?
Fife means a small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music.
What is fife in Hindi?
Fife in Hindi is फाइफ. See Fife meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is fife?
Fife can be a noun, a verb, a numeral or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce fife?
Fife is pronounced /ˈfaɪf/.
What is the plural of fife?
The plural of fife is fifes.

Words near fife in the dictionary

  1. fietscafé
  2. fiew
  3. FIF
  4. Fif.
  5. FIFA
  6. fife
  7. Fife Lake
  8. fife major
  9. fife majors
  10. Fife Ness
  11. fife-rail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fife (page history and authors); Fife (page history and authors); fife (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fife (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fife (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); मुरलि (Nepali) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fife.wav.

Cite this entry: “fife.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fife. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.