fife

plural fifes

1. A small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music

present singular third person fifes · participle present fifing · participle past fifed · past fifed

1. To play this instrument.

1. Used instead of five in radio communications, especially NATO and ICAO, to avoid confusion with fire or nine.

   “Change course to two fife zero and reduce height to fifteen hundred feet.” That “fife,” thought Alan, sounded very affected; but it had a good survival value in a noisy background.

   1963, Arthur C Clarke, chapter 6, in Glidepath, New York: Simon and Schuster, page 66

1. A traditional county of Scotland succeeded by Fife Region in 1975, situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with landward boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire.

   Ross: Will you to Scone? Macduff: No, cousin, I'll to Fife.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], line 993

   Synonyms: Fifeshire

2. A council area of Scotland, one of 32 created in 1996.
3. A place in the United States:
   1. An unincorporated community in McCulloch County, Texas, named after Fife in Scotland.
   2. An unincorporated community in Goochland County, Virginia, named after the owner of the village site.
   3. A city in Pierce County, Washington, possibly named after William J. Fife.
4. A surname.