foe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fo, also fa,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English ġefā (“enemy, adversary in a blood feud”),^{[5][6][7][3][8]} the noun use of fāh (“at feud, hostile; guilty, outlawed”).^[5][2][7][3] The prefix ġe-, expressing mutuality, was lost in early Middle English, and the noun then fell together with the adjective;^[7][6][5] Hoad and the OED take fo partly as a shortened form of the Middle English noun ifo.^[3][9] The adjective is from Proto-Germanic *faihaz,^{[1][6][5][10]} the source also of Old Frisian fāch (“outlawed, punishable”), Middle Dutch vee (“hostile”) and Old High German gifēh (“hostile”),^{[9][10][4][2]} and related to fēhan (“to hate”) and Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷 (bifaih, “greed, fraud”).^[4][9][6][2] The same base gave fǣhð (“enmity”), the source of feud.^[3][11][4] Barnhart, Klein and Etymonline connect it with Lithuanian piktas (“angry, wicked”) and an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *peik- (“hostile, evil-minded”),^[6][4][5] but the OED finds no secure Indo-European cognates, perhaps comparing Old Irish óech (“enemy”);^[9][1] Hoad calls its ultimate origin unknown.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A deadly enemy, an adversary in a feud: in Old English, in Beowulf, where the adjective fāh, hostile, is found too.^[9][6] In the Old English laws ġefā is a party to a blood feud, either the pursuer or the pursued.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word widened from the deadly enemy of a feud to a personal enemy, someone who hates and seeks to harm another, and to a member of a hostile army or nation, as in Laȝamon's Brut (about 1275).^[9][7] Before 1200 it was also used of something harmful, such as a quality or condition;^[9] from about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle, our foe was the Devil.^[9] The weaker sense "opponent, adversary" is dated about 1600 by Etymonline and 1697, in Dryden, by the OED.^[5][9] Barnhart notes that the spelling with e arose in the late 14th and early 15th centuries but became established only in the early 17th.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave first "an enemy in war", quoting Spenser's old plural fone.^[13] The adjective "hostile" survives only in foeman,^[9][7][14] and today the noun is formal, poetic or rhetorical.^[15][7]

Timeline

• Old English – ġefā, an adversary in a deadly feud, in Beowulf.^[9][6]
• before 1200 – something harmful or destructive.^[9]
• c. 1225 – our foe, the Devil, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[9]
• c. 1275 – a member of a hostile army, in Laȝamon's Brut.^[9]
• before 1393 – one opposed to a cause or condition, in Gower.^[9]
• 1565 – collective, a hostile force.^[9]
• c. 1600 – opponent, adversary.^[5]
• 1697 – opponent, in Dryden.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (formal or literary) An enemy; a person who hates another and wishes to harm them: The two ministers had been bitter foes for years.^[15][2][9]
2. An enemy in war, or a hostile army: The garrison held the bridge against the foe.^[2][9][7]
3. An opponent or adversary.^[2][9]
4. Something harmful to a person or thing: Damp is the foe of old books.^[9][7]

Word family

• archfoe
• foeman

Related words

• feud
• fickle

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins