faw

See also: Faw

English

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /fɔː/
Rhymes: -ɔː
Homophones: fough, faugh

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeic.

Interjection

faw

Alternative form of faugh.
- 1972, John Gardner, The Sunlight Dialogues, page 36:
  "It's a complicated thing, though, isn't it." "Faw!" Churchill said.
- 2013, John D. MacDonald, A Tan and Sandy Silence:
  “If you'd carry a camera around your neck and walk fifty feet ahead of me, nobody would know we were together.”
  “Faw,” he said. “And tush.”

Etymology 2

Phonetic rendering of for.

Preposition

faw

Pronunciation spelling of for, chiefly used to represent the accent of slaves in the United States.
- 1907, George Washington Cable, Old Creole Days, Gutenberg eBook #10234:
  “ […] Now, Colossus, what air you a-beckonin′ at me faw?”

Etymology 3

From the surname Faa.

Noun

faw (plural faws)

A gypsy.

Anagrams

FWA, awf, WAF, WFA

Scots

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English fallen, from Old English feallan (“to fall, fail, decay, die, attack”), from Proto-West Germanic *fallan (“to fall”), from Proto-Germanic *fallaną (“to fall”). Cognate with West Frisian falle (“to fall”), Low German fallen (“to fall”), Dutch vallen (“to fall”), German fallen (“to fall”), Danish falde (“to fall”), Norwegian Bokmål falle (“to fall”), Norwegian Nynorsk falla (“to fall”), Icelandic falla (“to fall”), Lithuanian pùlti (“to attack, rush”), Yiddish פֿאַלן (faln, “to fall”).

Verb

faw (third-person singular simple present faws, present participle fawin, simple past fell, past participle fawen)

to fall

Alternative forms

fall

Etymology 2

Inherited from Middle English fal, fall, falle, from Old English feall, ġefeall (“a falling, fall”) and Old English fealle (“trap, snare”), from Proto-Germanic *fallą, *fallaz (“a fall, trap”). Cognate with Dutch val, German Fall (“fall”) and German Falle (“trap, snare”), Danish fald, Swedish fall, Icelandic fall, Yiddish פֿאַל (fal).

Noun

faw (plural faws)

fall (loss of greatness or status)
- 2017 November 23, Rab Wilson, “Brexit bourach an the decline an faw o empire”, in The National‎^[1]:
  Like the Roman Empire, that eftir its faw saw centuries o ceevil war an unrest, we cuid e’en be in danger o revolution in the UK.
  Like the Roman Empire, which saw centuries of civil war and unrest after its fall, even we in the United Kingdom could be in danger of revolution.

Etymology 3

Inherited from Middle English fawe, faȝe, from Old English fāg, fāh (“coloured; stained; dyed; tinged; shining; variegated”), from Proto-West Germanic *faih, from Proto-Germanic *faihaz (“coloured; motley”), from Proto-Indo-European *peyḱ- (“to mark, paint, colour”).

Adjective

faw (comparative mair faw, superlative maist faw)

Of various colours; variegated.

References

Eagle, Andy, editor (2026), “faw”, in The Online Scots Dictionary‎^[2]

Tashelhit

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /faw/

Verb

faw (intensive aorist ttfaw, verbal noun tifawt, Tifinagh spelling ⴼⴰⵡ, Arabic spelling فاو)

alternative form of ifiw

References

Stroomer, Harry (2025), Dictionnaire berbère tachelḥiyt-français — Tome 2 f—l (Handbook of Oriental Studies – Handbuch der Orientalistik; 188/2) (in French), Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, →DOI, →ISBN, page 874b