Feck

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -É›k

From Scots, aphetic form of effect.

Full definition of feck

Noun

1. Effect, value; vigor.
• 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, Abacus 2013, p. 64:some of which have earned a small academic following for their technical feck and for a pathos that was somehow both surreally abstract and CNS-rendingly melodramatic at the same time.

Derived terms

• feckless

Verb

1. (Ireland, slang) To throw.
2. (Ireland, slang) To steal.
3. (Ireland, slang) To leave hastily.

Alteration of fuck

Verb

1. (euphemistic, chiefly Irish) Fuck (except literally).
• 1970, Tim Pat Coogan, The I.R.A., As Charlie Murphy put it to me, 'When the bishops called down fire and brimstone not a man stirred but when Joe Christle fecked off half the shagging IRA followed him!
• 2004, May 29, A real thorn in the side; Profile : Diarmuid Gavin, It didn't stop him turning to a reporter, saying "feck it" and nipping out anyway to talk to friends.
• 2011, January 6, Erwin James, One dangerous lady‎, "My family were Irish," she says, "and the use of the word 'feck' was normal but, of course, as a child, I thought it was a swear word. My first day at Holycross I heard the nuns saying feckin' this and feckin' that and I thought, 'Oh my God, they're all swearing'
• 2011, January 6, A year to look forward to, the year gets off to a flying start when the words 'Oh feck' are uttered collectively by two million as the January wage sheets are handed out and the true realisation of the Budget kicks in