Link Centre Dictionary

foe

UK/fəʊ/ US/foʊ/ fairly common

noun

1.

an armed adversary (especially a member of an opposing military force)

  • “a soldier must be prepared to kill his enemies”
Synonyms
2.

a personal enemy

  • “they had been political foes for years”
Synonyms
Antonyms

Origin

From Middle English fo (“foe; hostile”), from earlier yfoh, yvo, ifa (“foe”), from Old English ġefāh (“enemy”), from fāh (“hostile”), from Proto-West Germanic *faih, from Proto-Germanic *faihaz (compare Old Frisian fāch (“punishable”), Middle High German gevēch (“feuder”)), from Proto-Indo-European *peyk/ḱ- (“to hate, be hostile”) (compare Middle Irish óech (“enemy, fiend”), Lithuanian pi̇̀ktas (“evil”)).

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.