fey

/feɪ/

/feɪ/

Other forms: feyer; feyest

Have you met someone who speaks like they’re casting spells and has a distant look in their eyes? That’s a fey person, someone who seems like they come from another world, kind of like an elf.

There’s a fey girl, let’s call her Faye. Fey Faye is not an elf nor a witch, but she seems supernatural in a vague way, and her voice sounds like a magic flute. Fey comes from the Old English word fǣge, or literally “fated to die soon,” which refers to that odd good mood a person is in right before they die. Don’t worry, that definition isn’t used anymore, and fey Faye isn’t dying. But she is kind of spooky.

Definitions of fey

1. adjective

   suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness
   “"the fey quality was there, the ability to see the moon at midday"- John Mason Brown”

   synonyms: elfin

   supernatural

   not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material
2. adjective

   slightly insane
   synonyms: touched

   insane

   afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement