What does fazed mean?
Fazed means disconcerted, unsettled, or rattled by something unexpected or difficult. It comes from the verb 'to faze', which means to disturb someone's composure, and 'fazed' typically appears as its past form or in adjectival use after a negative: a speaker who is 'not fazed' by hecklers, an athlete who 'wasn't fazed' by the pressure. This negative framing defines how the word lives in modern English — it is far more often used to praise someone's steadiness than to report genuine distress, and its close cousin 'unfazed' carries the same implication of calm. The word has modest, largely British roots: it descends from an old English verb meaning to drive away or frighten, which lingered in regional speech before finding its way into wider use. Writers should take care not to confuse 'fazed' with 'phased', which concerns stages of a process. As a compact way to express resilience under pressure, 'fazed' remains a useful and vivid word.
Past form of 'to faze': to disturb the composure of; to disconcert or unsettle.
"Nothing the critics said could have fazed her."
Almost always appears under negation ('not fazed'), emphasizing that someone remained calm.
Describing someone showing no disturbance or loss of confidence, typically in the pattern 'not fazed' or 'unfazed'.
"He walked into the interview completely unfazed."
This adjectival use is effectively inseparable from negative framing; a standalone positive use is rare.
For most of its history 'faze' survived only in dialect — yet today we almost never say it positively: it lives on mainly as the word for what something failed to do to us.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of fazed
'Faze' descends from the Old English verb 'fēsian', meaning to drive away, hunt out, or frighten, which developed into the Middle English form 'feze' or 'feeze'. The verb survived chiefly in dialect, especially in Kent and other southern counties of England, before entering broader literary usage around the early eighteenth century. Its modern sense of discomposure grew out of that older meaning of frightening or unsettling. The word's relative rarity outside Britain long kept it informal, but it is now standard in both British and American English, most familiar through the negative construction 'unfazed'.
Related word forms
How fazed is actually used
'Fazed' is nearly always seen in negative contexts — 'not fazed', 'hardly fazed' — where it emphasizes composure rather than distress; saying someone 'was fazed' is grammatically fine but noticeably less common. The tone is informal to neutral, common in journalism and everyday conversation.
Easily confused with fazed
'Phased' relates to stages or gradual introduction (as in 'phased withdrawal'), while 'fazed' means disconcerted or rattled.