What does feg mean?
"Feg" is one of those rare English words that survives at the margins of the dictionary rather than in daily speech. It appears in historical and dialect sources, most recognizably in the exclamatory form "fegs," an old-fashioned oath of the kind found in early modern literature. Because the word is so sparsely attested, its precise sense can differ from one reference work to another, and it carries no established modern connotation outside specialist contexts such as word games and lexicography, where it is valued precisely for its obscurity. For most readers today, encountering "feg" is an invitation into the history of English regional vocabulary — a reminder that the language contains many small, half-forgotten words that once had local currency and now persist mainly on the printed page. Treat it as a curiosity rather than a working word of contemporary English.
verbDefinition pending review.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of feg
The etymology of "feg" is not securely established; it belongs to the body of obscure English dialect words recorded in older glossaries, and no widely accepted account of its origin or cognates can be stated with confidence.
Related word forms
How feg is actually used
This is a genuinely obscure word, found mainly in historical and dialect glossaries rather than everyday modern use; its exact sense varies between sources and should be verified before relying on it.
Easily confused with feg
'Fag' commonly means a tiring chore (or a cigarette in British slang), whereas 'feg' is a rare archaic or dialectal word with unrelated historical senses.