feck

See also: féck

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɛk/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛk

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Scots, aphetic form of effect.

Noun

feck (plural fecks)

1. Effect, value; vigor.
   • 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, Abacus 2013, p. 64:

     some of which have earned a small academic following for their technical feck and for a pathos that was somehow both surreally abstract and CNS-rendingly melodramatic at the same time.

2. (Scotland) The greater or larger part.
   • a. 1786, Robert Burns, The Carle of Kellyburn Braes

     I hae been a devil the feck o' my life

Derived terms

• feckless

Verb

feck (third-person singular simple present fecks, present participle fecking, simple past and past participle fecked)

1. (Ireland, slang) To throw.
2. (Ireland, slang) To steal.
3. (Ireland, slang, sometimes with off) To leave hastily.
   • 1970, Tim Pat Coogan, The I.R.A.:

     As Charlie Murphy put it to me, 'When the bishops called down fire and brimstone not a man stirred but when Joe Christle fecked off half the shagging IRA followed him!'

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:feck.

Etymology 2

Alteration of fuck.

Verb

feck (third-person singular simple present fecks, present participle fecking, simple past and past participle fecked)

1. (euphemistic, chiefly Ireland) Fuck.
   • 1995, Graham Linehan & al., "Good Luck, Father Ted", Father Ted Series 1, Episode 1, Channel Four:

     Father Jack Hackett: Tea? Feck!
     ...
     Mrs. Doyle: I'll tell you what, Father. I'll pour a cup for ye anyway and y' can have it if ya want. Now... And what do you say to a cup?
     Father Jack Hackett: Feck off, cup!

   • 2004 May 29, “A real thorn in the side; Profile: Diarmuid Gavin”, in The Herald:

     It didn't stop him turning to a reporter, saying "feck it" and nipping out anyway to talk to friends.

   • 2011 January 6, Erwin James, “One dangerous lady”, in Sydney Morning Herald:

     "My family were Irish," she says, "and the use of the word 'feck' was normal but, of course, as a child, I thought it was a swear word. My first day at Holycross I heard the nuns saying feckin' this and feckin' that and I thought, 'Oh my God, they're all swearing'

   • 2011 January 6, “A year to look forward to”, in Galway Advertiser:

     the year gets off to a flying start when the words 'Oh feck' are uttered collectively by two million as the January wage sheets are handed out and the true realisation of the Budget kicks in

Synonyms

• eff, frak, frig; see also Thesaurus:copulate or Thesaurus:copulate with

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Scots

Etymology

From Early Scots fek, aphetic form of Middle English effect, from Old French effect.

Noun

feck (plural fecks)

1. (obsolete) effect
2. (obsolete) value
3. A large amount, or the majority of something.

References

• “feck” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.