fête
English
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French fête.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /feɪt/, /fɛt/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -eɪt, -ɛt
Noun
fête (plural fêtes)
- Alternative spelling of fete.
Verb
fête (third-person singular simple present fêtes, present participle fêting, simple past and past participle fêted)
- Alternative spelling of fete.
- 1921 October, Maxwell H. H. Macartney, “An Ex-Enemy in Berlin to-Day”, in The Atlantic[1]:
- This is not, of course, to say that the British — or even the Americans — are positively popular or fêted here.
Anagrams
French
Etymology
Inherited from Middle French feste, from Old French feste, from Late Latin fēsta, from the plural of Latin fēstum.
Pronunciation
Noun
fête f (plural fêtes)
- winter holidays (always in plural)
- Tu fais quoi pour les fêtes (de fin d'année)? ― What will you do for the (winter) holidays? (literally, “the end-of-year holidays”)
- party
- (Christianity) name day
- Le 18 mai, c'est la fête des Éric. ― May 18 is the name day of people named Eric.
- (North America) birthday
- Bonne fête! ― Happy birthday!
Derived terms
Related terms
Descendants
Verb
fête
- inflection of fêter:
- first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- second-person singular imperative
Further reading
- “fête”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Norman
Etymology
From Old French feste, from Late Latin fēsta, from the plural of Latin fēstum.
Pronunciation
Noun
fête f (plural fêtes)