Dey

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /deɪ/
• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Homophones: day

From Middle English deye, deie, daie, from Old English dǣġe ("maker of bread; baker; dairy-maid"), from Proto-Germanic *daigijǭ ("kneader of bread, maid"), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- ("to knead, form, build"). Cognate with Swedish deja, Icelandic deigja ("dairy-maid"); compare dairy, dough, lady.

Alternative forms

• daie, deie, deye

Full definition of dey

Noun

1. (UK dialectal, Scotland) A servant who has charge of the dairy; a dairymaid.

From French dey, from Turkish dayı.

Noun

1. The title given to the ruler of the Regency of Algiers (now Algeria) under the Ottoman Empire.
• 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 29:the reigning Dey of Algiers (half of whose twenty-eight predecessors are said to have met violent ends) lost his temper with the French consul, struck him in the face with a fly-whisk, and called him ‘a wicked, faithless, idol-worshipping rascal’.

Pronoun

1. Eye dialect of they
2. Eye dialect of there

Anagrams

• dye, d'ye