dey

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /deɪ/
• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Homophone: day

Etymology 1

From Middle English deye, deie, daie, from Old English dǣġe (“maker of bread; baker; dairy-maid”), from Proto-Germanic *daigijǭ (“kneader of bread, maid”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to knead, form, build”). Cognate with Swedish deja, Icelandic deigja (“dairy-maid”); compare dairy, dough, lady.

Alternative forms

• daie, deie, deye

Noun

dey (plural deys)

1. (UK dialectal, Scotland) A servant who has charge of the dairy; a dairymaid.

Etymology 2

From French dey, from Turkish dayı.

Noun

dey (plural deys)

1. The title given to the ruler of the Regency of Algiers (now Algeria) under the Ottoman Empire.
   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 29:

     the reigning Dey of Algiers (half of whose twenty-eight predecessors are said to have met violent ends) lost his temper with the French consul, struck him in the face with a fly-whisk, and called him ‘a wicked, faithless, idol-worshipping rascal’.

Etymology 3

Pronoun

dey

1. Eye dialect spelling of they, representing African American Vernacular English.
2. Eye dialect spelling of there, representing African American Vernacular English.

References

• dey in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “dey” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).

Anagrams

• dye, d'ye

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Nigerian Pidgin

Alternative forms

• deh

Verb

dey

1. is, are