Feck
A mild Hiberno-English substitute for the stronger English expletive. As an interjection ('feck!'), as a verb ('feck off'), as an emphatic ('a fecking nuisance'). Distinct from the English word in two respects: it has no sexual connotation in Irish use, and it is far more acceptable in mixed and family company.
Etymology
Two strands. The older Hiberno-English sense - to steal - is documented in James Joyce's _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ (1916): 'they had fecked cash out of the rector's room.' That sense is borrowed from Scots, where 'feck' is an aphetic form of 'effect'. The expletive sense - feck as a milder version of the English f-word - is a minced oath: the same vowel-modified avoidance pattern as 'darn' for 'damn'. The two senses coexist in modern Hiberno-English.
In a sentence
"Feck off out of that, you're getting on my nerves."
Historical notes
Feck became internationally famous through Father Ted (1995-1998), where Father Jack Hackett used it as his standalone exclamation. The show's reach pulled the word into wider British use; American audiences received it via television and assumed it was a softened Irish-flavoured version of the English original. The Hiberno-English use predates Father Ted by decades and was already accepted in Irish English print and broadcast before the show; the show's contribution was to confirm to the rest of the English-speaking world that the word existed and that nobody in Ireland thought it was rude.
Alternate spellings
fecking
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry feck v. (Scots / Hiberno-English). · dictionary
- Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). · academic