Etymology

fife

F4I1F4E1

Today it means: A small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music Full definition →

German Pfeife
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

fife · noun, verb1

  1. German · borrowed fromPfeife“whistle, smoking pipe”
  2. English todayfife

From German Pfeife (“whistle, smoking pipe”). Doublet of pipe.

Fife · proper noun2

  1. Scottish Gaelic · borrowed fromFìobha
  2. English todayFife

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic Fìobha, said to date back to the eponym Fib, one of the seven sons of the legendary Pictish king Cruithne. Possibly related to the Uip attested in the Pictish kings lists, in turn possibly related to the Latin Vepogenus, in which the first element is the Proto-Brythonic predecessor of Welsh gwep (“face”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.