faze

See also: fáze, fázé, fazê, and fǎzé

English

WOTD – 10 July 2018

Alternative forms

• phase (see notes)

Etymology

From English dialectal (Kentish) feeze, feese (“to alarm, discomfit, frighten”), from Middle English fēsen (“to chase, drive away; put to flight; discomfit, frighten, terrify”), from Old English fēsan, fȳsan (“to send forth; to hasten, impel, stimulate; to banish, drive away, put to flight; to prepare oneself”), from Proto-Germanic *funsijaną (“to predispose, make favourable; to make ready”), from Proto-Indo-European *pent- (“to go; to walk”). The word is cognate with Old Norse fýsa (“to drive, goad; to admonish”), Old Saxon fūsian (“to strive”).

Citations for faze in the Oxford English Dictionary start in 1830, and usage was established by 1890.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: fāz, IPA^(key): /feɪz/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Homophone: phase
• Rhymes: -eɪz

Verb

faze (third-person singular simple present fazes, present participle fazing, simple past and past participle fazed)

1. (transitive, informal) To frighten or cause hesitation; to daunt, put off (usually used in the negative); to disconcert, to perturb. [from mid 19th c.]

   Jumping out of an airplane does not faze him, yet he is afraid to ride a roller coaster.

   • 1965, Catullus; Barriss Mills, transl., The Carmina of Catullus: A Verse Translation, [West Lafayette, Ind.]: Purdue University Studies, OCLC 1355221, carminum 42, page 71:

     But we're / Not getting anywhere. Nothing / fazes her.

   • 1990, “Assessment”, in Broadening the Base of Treatment for Alcohol Problems: Report of a Study by a Committee of the Institute of Medicine, Division of Mental Health and Behavioral Medicine, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, →ISBN, section III (Aspects of Treatment), pages 252–253:

     Some individuals "can't hold their liquor" and become thoroughly intoxicated on small amounts of alcohol which would not faze most social drinkers.

   • 2009, Richard Wigmore, The Faber Pocket Guide to Haydn, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, page 192:

     He sticks it out even further in the scherzo, fazing the listener with displaced accents, and then inserting a malicious pause just when we seem to have found our feet.

   • 2017 November 10, Daniel Taylor, “Youthful England earn draw with Germany but Lingard rues late miss”, in The Guardian‎^[1], London, archived from the original on 28 March 2018:

     [Gareth] Southgate should be absolutely clear now that [Jordan] Pickford is not fazed by the big occasion but, on the flip-side, he might not be too thrilled his goalkeeper was involved so much.

Usage notes

The spelling phase is sometimes used for faze; including by such notables as Mark Twain and The New York Times.

Alternative forms

• feaze

Derived terms

• unfazed

Translations

to frighten or cause hesitation; to daunt, put off; to disconcert, perturb

• Bulgarian: плаша (bg) (plaša)
• Danish: skræmme (da)
• Dutch: afschrikken (nl)
• French: effrayer (fr)
• German: aus der Fassung bringen, in Unruhe versetzen, abschrecken (de), schrecken (de)

• Maori: whakahārangi
• Polish: zbić z tropu
• Portuguese: amedrontar (pt)
• Swedish: besvära (sv), bringa ur fattning, skrämma (sv)

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Kabuverdianu

Verb

faze

1. do, make

Etymology

From Portuguese fazer.

References

• Gonçalves, Manuel, Capeverdean Creole-English dictionary, 2015, →ISBN

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Portuguese

Verb

faze

1. second-person singular imperative of fazer

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Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈfaze]

Noun

faze f

1. indefinite plural of fază
2. indefinite genitive/dative singular of fază