Fay or fey?
fay is a verb meaning “To join (pieces of timber) tightly. The long edges of the staves of a barrel…”; fey is an adjective meaning “Possessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience”. Use fay as a verb and fey as an adjective (fay is also an adjective: “Fitted closely together”). They sound the same (/feɪ/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) fay is about 2.0 times as common as fey.
What is the difference between fay and fey?
| fay | fey | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, adjective, noun | adjective, noun, verb |
| Meaning | To join (pieces of timber) tightly. The long edges of the staves of a barrel have to be fayed so that when it is assembled it will not leak Of pieces of timber: to lie close together Fitted closely together | IrelandScotlandPossessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience Overrefined, affected Magical or fairylike |
| Example | I have a strip cutter and I can cut the exact widths I need to fit, they are easy to fay together and attach very firmly to the bulkheads | to fey a drain or ditch |
| Forms | fays, faying, fayed | feyer, feyest |
| Pronunciation | /feɪ/ | /feɪ/ |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words | about once in every 1 million words |
Sources: fay and fey in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of fay and fey
fay
- 1
To join (pieces of timber) tightly. The long edges of the staves of a barrel have to be fayed so that when it is assembled it will not leak
I have a strip cutter and I can cut the exact widths I need to fit, they are easy to fay together and attach very firmly to the bulkheads
- 2
Fitted closely together
Under the four outer corners of the horizontal frame platform 22 are four tubular leg sleeves 23 that are fay together one at each outer corner
- 3
A fairy
- 4
Fairy-like
- 5
To cleanse; clean out
- 6
USslangA white person
- 7
USslangWhite; white-skinned
- 8
Of pieces of timber: to lie close together
fey
- 1
IrelandScotlandPossessing second sight, clairvoyance, or clairaudience
- 2
Magical or fairylike
- 3
A fairy
- 4
Alternative form of pe (“Semitic letter”)
- 5
Overrefined, affected
- 6
Fairy folk collectively
- 7
Strange or otherworldly
- 8
Spellbound
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, fay or fey?
fay appears 1.9 times per million words; fey about once in every 1 million words.
fay 1.9 times per million wordsfey about once in every 1 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search fay vs fey?
“fay vs fey” is searched about 30 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“fey vs fay”, “fay or fey”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.