fiend
pronunciation
How to pronounce fiend in British English:
UK [fi:nd]
How to pronounce fiend in American English:
US [find]
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- Noun:
- a cruel wicked and inhuman person
- one of the evil spirits of traditional Jewish and Christian belief
- a person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause)
Word Origin
- fiend
- fiend: [OE] Fiend seems originally to have meant ‘hated person’. It was formed in prehistoric times from the past participle of a Germanic verb meaning ‘hate’ (represented in historic times by, for example, Old English fēon, Old High German fiēn, and Gothic fijan). In Old English its meaning had progressed to ‘enemy’ (which is what its German relative feind still means). Then towards the end of the first millennium AD we see evidence of its being applied to the ‘enemy’ of mankind, the Devil. From there it was a short step to an ‘evil spirit’ in general, and hence to any ‘diabolically wicked person’.
- fiend (n.)
- Old English feond "enemy, foe, adversary," originally present participle of feogan "to hate," from Proto-Germanic *fijand- "hating, hostile" (cognates: Old Frisian fiand "enemy," Old Saxon fiond, Middle Dutch viant, Dutch vijand "enemy," Old Norse fjandi, Old High German fiant, Gothic fijands), from suffixed form of PIE root *pe(i)- "to hurt" (cognates: Sanskrit pijati "reviles, scorns," Greek pema "suffering, misery, woe," Gothic faian "to blame," and possibly Latin pati "to suffer, endure"). According to Watkins, not allied to foe and feud (n.). As spelling suggests, the word originally was the opposite of friend and described any hostile enemy (male and female, with abstract noun form feondscipe "fiendship"), but it began to be used in late Old English for "the Devil, Satan" (literally "adversary") as the "enemy of mankind," which shifted its sense to "diabolical person" (early 13c.). The old sense of the word devolved to foe, then to the imported word enemy. For spelling with -ie- see field. Meaning "devotee (of whatever is indicated)," as in dope fiend, is from 1865.
Example
- 1. Feline friend or feline fiend ?
- 2. Power plant adds necessary buffs for blood fiend .
- 3. Or am I given over utterly to the fiend ?
- 4. I often go round to my fiend on holiday .
- 5. Their father was a fiend , violent when he was drunk .