fi

fi U+FB01, fi LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FI ← ff [U+FB00] Alphabetic Presentation Forms fl → [U+FB02]

fi

1. (international standards) ISO 639-1 language code for Finnish.

• enPR: fē, fī, IPA^(key): /fiː/, /faɪ/
• Rhymes: -iː, -aɪ
• Homophones: fee or fie

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

fi

1. (music) The solfeggio syllable used to indicate the sharp of the fourth note of a major scale.

Abbreviation

fi (uncountable)

1. (in combination) Abbreviation of fidelity (e.g. in hi-fi, lo-fi, or wi-fi).
2. (in combination) Abbreviation of fiction (e.g. in sci-fi).

• cli-fi
• psych-fi
• spy-fi

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

fi

1. (Jamaica) Alternative form of to.
   • 2004, Deborah A. Thomas, Irene Silverblatt, Sonia Saldívar-Hul, Modern Blackness Nationalism, Globalization, and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica:

     We shoulda try fi produce more and market the things we have better so we can buy the things we need fi buy

   • 2005, Sean Paul, “Temperature”:

     I got the right temperature fi shelter you from the storm

   • 2021, Maisy Card, These Ghosts Are Family, page 76:

     After the funeral you need fi find somewhere else fi live

“fi”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• IF, if

fi

1. alternative form of fia

   Isch fi enk enkro Dialekt lai a Dialekt oddo an eigna Schprouche?

   Is your dialect just a dialect for you or is it a whole language?

From Latin filius.

fi m (plural fis)

1. son

• filleu
• fillôt

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈfi]

Inherited from Latin fīnis. Compare Occitan fin, French fin, Italian fine.

fi f (plural fins)

1. finish; the end

From the same source as the above (with similar occurrences in most Romance languages), or less likely, possibly originally from fidus, which also gave Old Occitan fi, phonetically.^[1]

fi (feminine fina, masculine plural fins, feminine plural fines)

1. fine, thin
2. soft, smooth
3. sharp, keen

Borrowed from Latin phi, from Ancient Greek φεῖ (pheî).

fi f (plural fis)

1. phi; the Greek letter Φ (lowercase φ)

• “fi”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “fi” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “fi” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From French fi, Latin fī. Compare German pfui.

• Audio:

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /fi/
• Rhymes: -i
• Hyphenation: fi

fi

1. For shame!

   "Jes, mi frapis mian frateton kaj mi ne bedaŭras ĝin!" "Ho, fi!"

   "Yes, I hit my little brother and I'm not sorry about it!" "Oh, for shame!"

   Fi al vi! ― Shame on you!

• fi-

fi

1. water

• ASJP, citing W. Baron, Kwomtari Survey (1983, SIL)

Latin fi.

• IPA^(key): /fi/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Homophones: fie, fient, fies

fi

1. (archaic) faugh, fie, bah, pooh

• faire fi
• faire fi de

• “fi”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Latin fīlius.

fi m (plural fis)

1. son

• fie
• fioç

From French fille (“girl, daughter”).

• IPA^(key): /fi/

• Audio:

  (file)

fi

1. girl
2. daughter

• tifi

• Rhymes: -fi

See under fiú.

fi (plural fiak)

1. (archaic, today only in compounds) son, child, offspring (of a human or an animal)

   Synonym: fiú

2. (archaic, today only in compounds) a smaller part of a building or a piece of furniture, cf. fiók (“drawer”)

The accusative and the plural form can also be fiat and fiak, respectively, although fit, fik (the shorter versions) are more usual here.^[1]

The possessive-suffixed forms can also be fim etc., although the fiam etc. forms (the longer versions) are more usual here.^[1]

fi

1. (rare, literary) yuck, ugh, boo (expression of disgust or contempt, sometimes like a symbolic spitting)

   Synonyms: fuj, pfuj

From Latin phi, from Ancient Greek φεῖ (pheî).

fi (plural fik) (the plural form is rare)

1. Phi; the Greek letter Φ (lowercase φ).

(suffixed forms are rare)

• (son): fi in Géza Bárczi, László Országh, et al., editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN.
• (yuck): fi in Géza Bárczi, László Országh, et al., editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN.

From English for to.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɪ/
• Hyphenation: fi

fi

1. for

   Mi head a hot mi. Yuh have supn can gimme fi it?

   I have a headache. Can you give me something for the pain?

   • 2016, Sylvia Gilfillian, The Road to Timnath: Di Ruod Tu Timnat (in Jamaican Creole), →ISBN:

     “A wanda how dem come fi tink dat di trial a di pastor is a fittin event fi a pikni witness. […] ”

     I asked myself how they could possibly think that the pastor's trial would be an appropriate event for children to see. […]

2. (+ infinitive) to

   Wi wah fi know wah gwaan.

   We want to know what's going on.

   • 2016, Sylvia Gilfillian, The Road to Timnath: Di Ruod Tu Timnat (in Jamaican Creole), →ISBN:

     “Me look up to di platform and see about eight wooden chairs up deh. Me eyeball dem fi see which wan a dem me kuda move because some a dem carve outa solid wood and look well heavy. […] ”

     I looked up at the platform and saw about eight wooden chairs up there. I studied them to see which one I could move because some of them were made of solid wood and looked extremely heavy. […]

3. (interrogative) (+ infinitive) can

   How dem fi do dat?

   How can they do a thing like that?

   • 2018, Shelley Sykes-Coley, Chat ’Bout!: An Anthology of Jamaican Conversations (in Jamaican Creole), →ISBN:

     “How unnu fi walk an' nyam, an' litter di street?
     Mi jus' cyaan andastan' how unno fi dweet. […] ”

     How can you walk and eat, and throw litter in the street?
     I just can't understand how you can do it. […]

4. (+ infinitive) should

   Im fi tap it. It a guh mash 'im up.

   He/She should stop doing that. It's going to wreck him/her.

   • 2013, Selvin McRae, The Guilty Truth Revealed (in Jamaican Creole), →ISBN, page 108:

     “Mi pickney unnu fi look n love nuff money
     Horse pon track cah gallop without money […] ”

     My children, you should seek and desire a lot of money
     A horse on a track can't race without money […]

• Richard Allsopp, editor (1996), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 229
• fi – jamaicans.com Jamaican Patois dictionary

fi

1. The katakana syllable フィ (fi) in Hepburn-like romanization.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈfiː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈfiː]

Compare Sanskrit धिक् (dhik, “fie, shame!”).

fī

1. pah!, pooh!, foh!, bah!, an expression of disgust

   Fi, fi fetet!

   Pah, it stinks!

• English: fy, fie
• Esperanto: fi

fī

1. second-person singular present passive imperative of faciō

• “fi”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “fi”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

Borrowed from English fee.

fi (Jawi spelling في, plural fi-fi)

1. fee

   Synonyms: yuran, caj

• “fi” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.

• IPA^(key): /fɪ/

fi

1. alternative form of f’: used before a consonant cluster

• IPA^(key): /ˈfi/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -i
• Syllabification: fi

fi n (indeclinable)

1. alternative spelling of phi

• fi in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• fi in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• phi (pre-standardization spelling)

• Rhymes: -i

fi m (plural fis)

1. phi (name of the Greek letter Φ)

• фи (fi) — Moldovan Cyrillic spelling
• hi — dialectal

Inherited from Latin sum. The citation form and the f- conjugations come from Vulgar Latin *fīre < Latin fierī (“become”). Compare Aromanian hiu.

• IPA^(key): [fi]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

a fi (third-person singular present este or (relatively informal) e, past participle fost, third-person subjunctive fie) 4th conjugation

1. (with a predicate adjective or predicate nominative) to be

   Ea este frumoasă. ― She is beautiful.

   Aceasta este o casă. ― This is a house.

2. (with a predicate adjective and an indirect object) to feel (to experience a certain condition)

   Îmi e frig. ― I feel cold. (literally, “To me it is cold.”)

   Îmi este rău. ― I feel sick.

3. to be it in a game of tag

   Leapșa, tu ești! ― Tag, you're it!

• One can also use e as an informal variant of the third-person singular present tense, este.
• The second entries in the simple perfect row represent the informal variants.

• Additionally there are sînt, sîntem, sînteți for sunt, suntem, sunteți, see the usage notes in sunt for more.

• ființă
• fiindcă
• fire

• “fi”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025

• fieu (Rumantsch Grischun)
• fiug (Sursilvan)
• fia, fiac (Sutsilvan)
• fö (Puter, Vallader)

From Latin focus (“hearth, fireplace”).

fi m

1. (Surmiran) fire

• IPA^(key): /ˈfi/ [ˈfi]
• Rhymes: -i
• Syllabification: fi

fi f (plural fíes)

1. phi; the Greek letter Φ, φ

• “fi”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

Shortening of fienden (“the enemy”).

fi

1. only used in lede fi

From Arabic فِي (fī)

• IPA^(key): /fiː/

fi

1. (archaic) at (often used with prices or dates)

(A surviving fixed expression is"fi tarihinde". Please clarify, if it means at an unspecified earlier date or at an aforementioned date.)

• filvaki
• filhal

• IPA^(key): /viː/
• Rhymes: -iː

From Proto-Celtic *mī.

fi

1. I, me

• i (“I, me”)
• mi (“I, me”)

fi f (plural fiau, not mutable)

1. The name of the Latin-script letter V/v.

• (Latin-script letter names) llythyren; a, bi, ec, èch, di, èdd, e, èf, èff, èg, eng, aetsh, i / i dot, je, ce, el, èll, em, en, o, pi, ffi, ciw, er, rhi, ès, ti, èth, u / u bedol / u gwpan, fi, w, ecs, y, sèd

Of uncertain relation to Ternate ahi, Galela kahi, Sahu kai, etc.

• IPA^(key): /ɸi/

fi

1. skin

   ituka mefi ― it's shedding its skin (of a snake)

2. bark

   fete de fi ― tree bark

3. shell

   laia de fi ― shellfish shell

• IPA^(key): /ɸi/

fi

1. to come up (from below)

• Clemens Voorhoeve (1982) The Makian languages and their neighbours‎^[1], Pacific linguistics

• فِ

• IPA^(key): /fí/

fí

1. The name of the Latin-script letter F/f.

• (Latin-script letter names) lẹ́tà; á, bí, dí, é, ẹ́, fí, gí, gbì, hí, í, jí, kí, lí, mí, ní, ó, ọ́, pí, rí, sí, ṣí, tí, ú, wí, yí

• IPA^(key): /fi/

fi

1. (auxiliary verb) to use something to do something else (must be used with another verb)

This verb cannot be used on its own with an object and must be used with a second verb to show purpose. In the case of simply using an object without any purpose, lò must be used instead.

1. "Mo fi ṣíbí jẹ ìrẹsì." – I used a spoon to eat rice. (uses a second verb, jẹ, along with fi)
2. "Mo lo ṣíbí." – I used a spoon. (uses lò, changed to lo before an object noun, since there's no second verb for purpose)

• IPA^(key): /fí/

fí

1. (transitive) to swing
2. (transitive) to swirl, to centrifuge