FIEND
What does "FIEND" mean?
An evil or cruel person, or a devil.
Meanings
- A wicked or cruel person; a demon or devil. In the legend, a fiend offered the miller gold for his soul.
- A person obsessively devoted to something, often an addiction or hobby. He's a crossword fiend who won't start the day without one. informal
Did you know?
- 'Fiend' and 'friend' are grammatical twins: one came from an Old English verb meaning 'to hate', the other from a verb meaning 'to love', so each word literally encodes 'the one who hates' versus 'the one who loves'.
Word origin
From Old English 'feond' meaning enemy or foe (originally the present participle of a verb meaning to hate), of Germanic origin; came to mean devil under Christian influence.
Remember it
FIEND keeps the 'i before e' that FRIEND breaks - a fiend follows the rule a friend won't.
A little poem
Drop one letter, swap a sound, and end-
the fiend was once the spelling of a friend.
couplet
Wordplay
- I'm not a sugar fiend, I'm a sugar friend - we just can't agree on the spelling.
What it teaches
Love and hate are one letter apart in the word and sometimes one choice apart in the heart.
Quick facts
What does FIEND mean?
An evil or cruel person, or a devil.
Is FIEND a valid word?
Yes — FIEND is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is FIEND?
FIEND has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does FIEND come from?
From Old English 'feond' meaning enemy or foe (originally the present participle of a verb meaning to hate), of Germanic origin; came to mean devil under Christian influence.
What can FIEND teach us?
Love and hate are one letter apart in the word and sometimes one choice apart in the heart.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.