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fou

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: Appendix:Variations of "fou"

English

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!

Etymology

Borrowed from Scots fou. Compare full, a doublet.

Adjective

fou (comparative more fou, superlative most fou)

  1. (Scotland) Drunk.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:drunk
    • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 110:
      Shand's father had missed the whole thing — getting fou in the pub, more than likely—but his mum had been there, in her best green twinset, her court shoes polished to a shine as high as Shand's.

See also

Anagrams

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Catalan

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Inherited from Latin fōcem, early monophthongized variant of faucem.

Noun

fou m (plural fous)

  1. (archaic) a narrow cove
  2. a narrow passage, a ravine
    Synonym: barranc

Etymology 2

Verb

fou

  1. third-person singular preterite indicative of ser
  2. third-person singular preterite indicative of ésser

References

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French

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /fu/
    • Audio:(file)
  • Audio (Canada (Shawinigan)):(file)
  • Audio (France (Toulouse)):(file)
  • Audio (France (Vosges)):(file)
  • Audio (France (Vosges)):(file)
  • Audio (France (Lyon)):(file)
  • Rhymes: -u
  • Homophones: fous, fout

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle French fol, from Old French fol, from Latin follem. Cognate with English fool.

Adjective

fou (masculine singular before vowel fol, feminine folle, masculine plural (obsolete) foux or fous, feminine plural folles)

  1. mad, crazy
    Synonyms: folle, dingue, loufoque, cinglé, farfelu, détraqué, maboul, louf, ouf, cinglé, cintré, taré, dingo
Derived terms
Descendants
  • Louisiana Creole: fou

Noun

fou m (plural fous or (obsolete) foux, feminine folle)

  1. madman
  2. jester (court entertainer)
  3. (colloquial) nut (extreme enthusiast)
    Synonym: malade
    C'est un fou de voile. ― He's a sailing nut.
Derived terms

Descendants

  • Mauritian Creole: fol

Etymology 2

Derived from Spanish alfil, from Arabic اَلْفِيل (al-fīl, “elephant; bishop (chess piece)”), influenced by Etymology 1.

Noun

fou m (plural fous)

  1. (chess) bishop
    • 2023 April, “Les règles du jeu d’échecs 2023”, in FIDE‎, page 3:
      Deux fous blancs habituellement représentés par le symbole (F) […] Un fou peut se déplacer sur n’importe quelle case le long d’une des diagonales sur lesquelles il se trouve.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
  2. booby (bird)

See also

Chess pieces in French · pièces d'échecs (layout · text)
♚ ♛ ♜ ♝ ♞ ♟
roi dame tour fou cavalier pion

Further reading

Anagrams

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Louisiana Creole

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Inherited from French fou (“mad, crazy”).

Adjective

fou m (feminine fòl)

  1. crazy, mad

Etymology 2

Inherited from French four (“oven, stove”).

Noun

fou

  1. (an) oven

Luxembourgish

Verb

fou

  1. second-person singular imperative of fouen

Mandarin

Romanization

fou

  1. nonstandard spelling of fóu
  2. nonstandard spelling of fǒu
  3. nonstandard spelling of fòu

Usage notes

  • Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

Mauritian Creole

Etymology

Derived from French fou.

Pronunciation

Noun

fou (feminine fol)

  1. (masculine) madman (a mad, crazy male person)

Adjective

fou (feminine fol)

  1. (masculine) mad, crazy, insane
    Synonym: pagla

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Old English fāh, from Proto-West Germanic *faih, from Proto-Germanic *faihaz.

Forms without final /x/ are a result of levelling from Old English inflected forms (e.g., masculine weak nominative singular fāga).

Pronunciation

Adjective

fou

  1. multicoloured / multicolored, stippled

Descendants

References

Noun

fou (plural fous)

  1. A kind of multicoloured fur.

References

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Norman

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Old French forn, from Latin furnus.

Noun

fou m (plural fous)

  1. (Jersey) oven

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Latin fagus.

Noun

fou oblique singular, m (oblique plural fous, nominative singular fous, nominative plural fou)

  1. beech (tree)

Descendants

Old Irish

Pronoun

fou

  1. alternative spelling of fóu

Romanian

Interjection

fou

  1. obsolete form of fă

References

  • fou in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN

Samoan

Etymology

Derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *(ma-)baqəʀu, from Proto-Austronesian *(ma-)baqəʀuh.

Adjective

fou

  1. new (recently made or created)

Scots

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English ful, from Old English full, from Proto-West Germanic *full, from Proto-Germanic *fullaz, from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁nós.

Adjective

fou (comparative mair fou, superlative maist fou)

  1. full
  2. well-fed, full of food or drink, sated, replete
  3. drunk, intoxicated

Adverb

fou (comparative mair fou, superlative maist fou)

  1. fully, very, quite, rather, too

Etymology 2

Noun

fou

  1. saxifrage

Etymology 3

Noun

fou (plural fous)

  1. bushel

Tsou

Noun

fou

  1. animal meat

West Makian

Etymology 1

Possibly cognate to Ternate horu (“to paddle”).

Pronunciation

Verb

fou

  1. (intransitive) to paddle
Conjugation
More information singular, plural ...

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

Noun

fou

  1. betel leaf

References

  • James Collins (1982), Further Notes Towards a West Makian Vocabulary‎, Pacific linguistics

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