fay

• enPR: fā, IPA^(key): /feɪ/
• Homophone: fey
• Rhymes: -eɪ

From Middle English feyen, feien, from Old English fēġan (“to join, unite”), from Proto-Germanic *fōgijaną (“to join”), from *fōgō (“joint, slot”), from Proto-Indo-European *paḱ- (“to fasten, place”). Akin to Old Frisian fōgia (“to join”), Old Saxon fōgian (“to join”), Middle Low German fögen (“to join, add”), Dutch voegen (“to add, place”), Old High German fuogen (“to connect”) (German fügen (“to connect”)), Old English fōn (“to catch”). More at fang.

fay (third-person singular simple present fays, present participle faying, simple past and past participle fayed)

1. To fit.
2. To join or unite closely or tightly.
   • Model Shipbuilders, 2010:

     I have a strip cutter and I can cut the exact widths I need to fit, they are easy to fay together and attach very firmly to the bulkheads.

3. To lie close together.
4. To fadge.

• (to join or unite closely): affix, attach, put together; see also Thesaurus:join

• faying surface

fay (comparative more fay, superlative most fay)

1. Fitted closely together.
   • US Patent Application 20070033853, 2006:

     Under the four outer corners of the horizontal frame platform 22 are four tubular leg sleeves 23 that are fay together one at each outer corner.

From Middle English fegien, fæien (“to cleanse”), from Old Norse fægja (“to cleanse, polish”), from Proto-Germanic *fēgijaną (“to decorate, make beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *pōḱ-, *pēḱ- (“to clean, adorn”). Cognate with Swedish feja (“to sweep”), Danish feje (“to sweep”), German fegen (“to cleanse, scour, sweep”), Dutch vegen (“to sweep, strike”). More at feague, fake, fair.

fay (third-person singular simple present fays, present participle faying, simple past and past participle fayed)

1. (dialectal) To cleanse; clean out.

Middle English faie, fei (“a place or person possessed with magical properties”), from Middle French feie, fee (“fairy", "fae”). More at fairy.

fay (plural fays)

1. A fairy.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ii:

     that mighty Princesse did complaine / Of grieuous mischiefes, which a wicked Fay / Had wrought [...].

• See fairy

fay (comparative more fay, superlative most fay)

1. Fairy like.

• fey
• fae

Abbreviation of ofay.

fay (plural fays)

1. (US slang) A white person.

fay (comparative more fay, superlative most fay)

1. (US slang) White.
   • 1946, Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, Payback Press 1999, p. 62:

     I really went for Ray's press roll on the drums; he was the first fay boy I ever heard who mastered this vital foundation of jazz music.

• FYA

From Old English fāg.

fay

1. Alternative form of fou

From Old English fǣġe.

fay

1. Alternative form of fey (“marked for death”)