feh

"Feh" is an interjection used to voice disdain, disgust, or contemptuous dismissal. Unlike simple reactions to something unpleasant, it most often targets ideas, suggestions, or situations the speaker finds worthless or beneath consideration: "Feh — you can keep your fancy gadgets." The word entered English from Yiddish, carried largely by immigrant speech and popularized through American Jewish humour on stage, screen, and page, which lends it a comic, slightly theatrical quality even now. It belongs firmly to informal registers — conversation, casual prose, dialogue — and would sound out of place in formal writing. Closely related exclamations such as "bah" and "pah" convey similar scorn, though "feh" carries a distinctly nasal, world-weary tone. Compact, expressive, and instantly recognizable, it lets a speaker reject something outright with just three letters.

An exclamation expressing disdain, disgust, or dismissive contempt, typically directed at an idea, suggestion, or state of affairs rather than at a smell or taste.

Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.

Etymology of feh

"Feh" comes from Yiddish, an expression of contempt or disgust that made its way into English, particularly American English, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries alongside other Yiddish borrowings. It spread beyond immigrant communities through American popular culture and comedy, becoming a recognized English interjection. It sits within a family of similar Yiddish-derived exclamations of distaste.

How feh is actually used

Informal register, used chiefly in speech and casual writing. Its strong association with American Jewish humor and mid-20th-century comedy gives it a slightly comic or theatrical flavour; in British English it remains less common. Often delivered with a shrug to underline dismissiveness.

Easily confused with feh

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Rhymes with feh