fiend
noun
Satan; the devil.
fiend
American
[feend]
/ find /
noun
fiends
plural
-
Satan; the devil.
-
any evil spirit; demon.
-
a diabolically cruel or wicked person.
-
a person or thing that causes mischief or annoyance.
Those children are little fiends.
-
Informal. a person who is extremely addicted to some pernicious habit.
an opium fiend.
-
Informal. a person who is excessively interested in some game, sport, etc.; fan; buff.
a bridge fiend.
-
a person who is highly skilled or gifted in something.
a fiend at languages.
verb (used without object)
fiend
1
British
/ fiːnd /
noun
-
an evil spirit; demon; devil
-
a person who is extremely wicked, esp in being very cruel or brutal
-
informal
-
a person who is intensely interested in or fond of something
a fresh-air fiend
he is a fiend for cards
-
an addict
a drug fiend
-
-
(informal) a mischievous or spiteful person, esp a child
Fiend
2
British
/ fiːnd /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fiend
First recorded before 900; Middle English feend, Old English fēond; cognate with German Feind, Old Norse fjandr, Gothic fijands “foe,” originally present participle of fijan “to hate”
Explanation
A fiend is a person or monster who has evil plans in their mind. They may try to steal your soul, or perhaps just want to hurt your feelings. Either way, fiends never mean you well. The Old English root word for fiend translates to “an enemy, the devil, a demon”: three cruel characters that would delight in causing you harm. Watch out for fiends like them. A less wicked type of fiend is one who loves something so much that it’s scary, like a sugar-addicted jelly bean fiend, or a snowboarding fiend. Fiend is a good example of the “i before e except after c” rule, so follow that and you’ll always spell it right.
Vocabulary lists containing fiend
"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act III
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"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act V
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Beowulf: A New Telling
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I’ve always been a fiend for sour things, whether that’s candy, fresh fruit, snacks or frozen desserts.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2025
He’s a workout fiend, just like his father, Bill, was before him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 9, 2025
Ryker was a hockey fiend at about a year old, watching 6 a.m.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 9, 2024
At the time, one critic from The Times of London suggested that “some fiend had been laying siege to Sir Joshua’s taste.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2023
And he is in the dying city, crumbling into dust like an elemental fiend.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
At times he would appear as Wyatt, a happy-go-lucky character who hosted a children’s show, but when angered, he turned into The Fiend, during which he wore a horrific clown mask.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2023
Goldberg, however, acknowledges he can’t match the power of his prime and knows matches in his recent stint against The Fiend, The Undertaker and others have been panned — and with good reason.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 20, 2021
Cena is a middle-aged babyface who’s appeared in bad comedies like “Blockers” and computer-animated kids movies; The Fiend wears a demonic-looking white mask with a black mouth.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 2, 2020
With the case now ice cold, what would be gained if I somehow found this long-dead Fiend?
From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2018
It was the Fiend, i.e. the baser nature, the human instinct, that said, “Budge not.”
From Tennyson and His Friends by Various
The good news for summer fiends: The region is expected to warm up next week on Thursday and Friday.
From Seattle Times ● May 31, 2024
The late Times movie critic Sheila Benson called the final film in the original trilogy “frankly irresistible” and heaped tons of praise on the furry fiends from the moon of Endor.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2024
She said he was "loved immensely by his family and fiends", adding that he was "kind, caring, and always checking up on you".
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2023
Lillian and her late husband, Frank, were absolute fiends for efficiency.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 21, 2023
I wondered where they were taking him, what grievous wrong had he committed deserving of being shackled, what type of fiends the two policemen were.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
