fee-faw-fum

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English

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Interjection

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fee-faw-fum

  1. A nonsensical exclamation attributed to giants and ogres.
    Synonym: fee-fi-fo-fum

Translations

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Noun

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fee-faw-fum (plural fee-faw-fums)

  1. A nonsensical exclamation attributed to giants and ogres.
    • 1908, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 102, page 823:
      The kindly fee-faw-fums of childhood, how many delicious shivers we owe them; the Things that stood behind doors, that trooped into the church when the congregation went out, that lurked in closet corners and under the bed []
  2. (archaic, by extension) Any expression calculated to impose upon the timid and ignorant.
    • J. H. Newman
      impudent fee-faw-fums
    • 1921, J. H. Tilden, Food: Its Influence As a Factor in Disease and Health, page 153:
      One of the most successful fee-faw-fums worked off on the prospective patients of mine for the past twenty-five years has been: “If you go to Tilden, he will starve you to death.”