Hodding Carter
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Fey is a word that defies its own (original) meaning, since it has yet to even come close to the brink of death after being in our language for well over 800 years. In Old and Middle English it meant "feeble" or "sickly." Those meanings turned out to be fey themselves, but the word lived on in senses related to death, and because a wild or elated state of mind was once believed to portend death, other senses arose from these. The word fay, meaning "fairy" or "elf," may also have had an influence on some senses of fey. Not until the 20th century did the word's most recent meanings, "precious" and "campy," find their way into the dictionary.
Examples of fey in a Sentence
Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 18 June 2025 Sharp cheekbones, Pan-like movements that were more fey than androgynous. —Elizabeth Winder, Rolling Stone, 24 July 2023 Not that there was anything fey or fanciful about Austen’s fashion sense: Davidson stresses that Austen’s wardrobe was a hardworking affair. —Kathryn Hughes, The New York Review of Books, 9 Mar. 2023 Back at work, she is eyed by her co-workers, the wonderfully fey Shane (Griffin Matthews) and the middle-aged worrier Megan (the terrific Rosie Perez). —Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 28 Dec. 2020 His business rivals include the louche Chinese gangster Dry Eye (Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding) and a drab little ferret of a man called Matthew (Succession star Jeremy Strong, who delivers every line in a sort of strange, fey deadpan). —Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 23 Jan. 2020 But on the biographical front, the popular image of Dickinson as a fragile, fey, romantically disappointed recluse has been harder to shake. —Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times, 30 Oct. 2019
Cite this Entry
“Fey.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.grautoblog.com/dictionary/fey. Accessed 26 Apr. 2026.
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