• enPR: fā, IPA: /feɪ/

From Middle English feyen, feien, from Old English fēġan, from Proto-West Germanic *fōgijan, from Proto-Germanic *fōgijaną, from *fōgō, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ḱ-.

fay (fays, present participle faying; simple past and past participle fayed)

1. (obsolete) To fit.
2. (shipbuilding, transitive) To join (pieces of timber) tightly. The long edges of the staves of a barrel have to be fayed so that when it is assembled it will not leak.
   • Model Shipbuilders, 2010:

     I have a strip cutter and I can cut the exact widths I need to fit, they are easy to fay together and attach very firmly to the bulkheads.

3. (shipbuilding, intransitive) Of pieces of timber: to lie close together.
4. (obsolete) To fadge.

• (to join or unite closely) affix, attach, put together; see also Thesaurus:join

fay

1. Fitted closely together.
   • US Patent Application 20070033853, 2006:

     Under the four outer corners of the horizontal frame platform 22 are four tubular leg sleeves 23 that are fay together one at each outer corner.

From Middle English faie, fei ("a place or person possessed with magical properties"), from Middle French feie, fée ("fairy", "fae").

fay (plural fays)

1. A fairy.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:

     that mighty Princesse did complaine / Of grieuous mischiefes, which a wicked Fay / Had wrought [...].

• See fairy

• French: fée
• Russian: фе́я

fay

1. Fairy like.

From Middle English fegien, fæien ("to cleanse"), from Old Norse fægja, from Proto-Germanic *fēgijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *pōḱ-, *pēḱ- ("to clean, adorn").

fay (fays, present participle faying; simple past and past participle fayed)

1. (dialectal) To cleanse; clean out.

Abbreviation of ofay.

fay (plural fays)

1. (US slang) A white person.

fay

1. (US slang) White; white-skinned.
   • 1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “They Found the Body in a Ditch”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 2 (1923–1928: Chicago, Chicago), page 62 ↗:

     I really went for Ray's press roll on the drums; he was the first fay boy I ever heard who mastered this vital foundation of jazz music.

• enPR: fā, IPA: /feɪ/

1. Surname, Anglicized from de Fae a Norman family that settled in Ireland.
2. Surname, anglicized from Ó Fiaich and Ó Fathaigh. (see Fahey.)
3. A female given name, pet form of Faith or Frances; often used as a middle name.