Borrowed fromScots, aphetic form ofeffect.
feck (countable anduncountable,pluralfecks)
- Effect, value; vigor.
1996, David Foster Wallace,Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.:Little, Brown and Company,→ISBN,page64:some of which have earned a small academic following for their technicalfeck and for a pathos that was somehow both surreally abstract and CNS-rendingly melodramatic at the same time.
- (Scotland) The greater or larger part.
a.1786,Robert Burns,The Carle of Kellyburn Braes:I hae been a devil thefeck o' my life
feck (third-person singular simple presentfecks,present participlefecking,simple past and past participlefecked)
- (Ireland, slang) Tosteal.
1916,James Joyce,Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:—But why did they run away, tell us?
—I know why, Cecil Thunder said. Because they hadfecked cash out of the rector's room.
—Whofecked it?
—Kickham's brother. And they all went shares in it. But that was stealing. How could they have done that?
2009, Julian Gough,Juno & Juliet: A Novel:And isn't it pure gangsters run the car parks, the price of them, and security cameras my arse, begging your pardon, sure it's watching videos they'd be, while some scut of a ten-year-old'sfecking your tape machine and maybe going back to break off the aerial if they don't approve of your taste in music.
feck (third-person singular simple presentfecks,present participlefecking,simple past and past participlefecked)
- (minced oath, chiefly Ireland)Used in place offuck.
- Synonyms:eff,frak,frig
1987 April 3, Deaglán Bréadún, “Ruairi shows the grey-suits how to break moulds”, inThe Irish Times:Earlier there was a dispute between the Chair and Proinsias de Rossa concerning the words used when a wife is getting rid of her husband. In the case of Deserted Wives' Allowance, Mr de Rossa said, it had to be proved that the wife didn't tell her husband to "feck off". Mr Tunney suggested that "get lost" might be a more appropriate expression for Mr de Rossa to use.
1992 July 18, “This Week They Said”, inThe Irish Times:"Why are youfecking around with this Family Planning Bill when people are dying?" - Senator David Norris to the Minister for Health, Dr O'Connell, on the Bill which does not allow condoms to be sold from vending machines.
- 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 doyou say to a cup?
Father Jack Hackett:Feck off, cup!
2002, 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 Christlefecked off half the shagging IRA followed him!'
2004 May 29, “A real thorn in the side; Profile: Diarmuid Gavin”, inThe Herald:It didn't stop him turning to a reporter, saying "feck it" and nipping out anyway to talk to friends.
2010 October 28, Erwin James, “Britain's queen of crime: Martina Cole”, inThe Guardian[2]:"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 sayingfeckin' this andfeckin' that and I thought, 'Oh my God, they're all swearing'["]
2011 January 6, “A year to look forward to”, inGalway Advertiser[3]:the year gets off to a flying start when the words 'Ohfeck' are uttered collectively by two million as the January wage sheets are handed out and the true realisation of the Budget kicks in
2012, Delilah Marvelle,Forever and a Day, Don Mills, O.N.:HQN,→ISBN,page117:And though she had no qualms of submitting to this bubbling desire coiling within her, for she was no prim virgin, she sensed far more than her body was going to getfecked.
2018 April 30, Conor Gallagher, “Vicky Phelan: ‘I’m here to tell the tale. And by God I’m going to take these guys on’”, inThe Irish Times[4]:“I never thought the problem would be of this magnitude. I really didn’t think I’d be waking up this morning to this type of news,” an emotional Ms Phelan said, adding that “theyfecked with the wrong women.”
2022 August 23, Jen Hogan, “Terry Prone on motherhood: ‘I did my best all of the time. I justfecking got it wrong!’”, inThe Irish Times[5]: 2023 February 4, Denis Walsh, “After a battle with leukaemia, Pat Ryan is comfortable carrying Cork’s great expectations”, inThe Irish Times[6]:But if you’re not going to set your own trends, and work to your own team, you’refecked.
- In Ireland, the termfeck does not have a sexual connotation and is not typically used to mean "to have sex with".[1]
- ^Stan Carey (6 October 2021), “Column: What does 'feck' really mean?”, inTheJournal.ie[1], archived fromthe original on14 August 2022:
There are significant differences betweenfeck andfuck aside from their relative strengths as curses. For one thing,feck doesn't have sexual uses or connotations. Tofeck something in Hiberno-English generally means to steal it (see below) or to throw it, often impatiently or casually:she fecked the orange peel out the car window.
FromEarly Scotsfek, aphetic form ofMiddle Englisheffect, fromOld Frencheffect.
feck (pluralfecks)
- (obsolete)effect
- (obsolete)value
- A large amount, or the majority of something.
