Acronym Definition
FEKD File Encryption Key Distribution
FEKD Frequency Exchange Keying Data
FEKD For Electronic Key Distribution
FEKD File Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland
fekd past tense of fek
Feck (or, in some senses, fek) is a monosyllable with several vernacular
meanings and variations in Irish English, Scots, Middle English, and Esperanto.
Modern Irish English
Slang expletive employed as an attenuated alternative (minced oath) to fuck
Verb meaning 'to steal' (e.g. 'They had fecked cash out of the rector's room.'
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist (1964) p. 40)
Verb meaning in Irish slang 'to throw' (e.g. 'He's got no manners at all. I
asked him nicely for the remote control, and he fecked it across the table at
me.')
Feck as an expletive
Vernacular usage of feck in the expletive sense is syntactically interchangeable
with fuck, though it has no sexual connotations. This includes such
phraseological variations as fecker (noun), fecking (verb or adjective), and
feckin' 'ell. It can even be used to describe a person: "he's an old feck". It
is not uncommon for school teachers and some members of the religious order to
use the word 'feck' as an expletive in Ireland thus demonstrating the word's
peculiarity in meaning to Ireland where it does not equate to the word 'fuck' as
many people outside Ireland tend to think.
Scots and Late Middle English
Feck (or fek) is a form of effeck, which is in turn the Scots form of effect.
However, this Scots noun has additional significance:
Efficacy; force; value; return
Amount; quantity (or a large amount/quantity)
The greater or larger part (when used with a definite article)
From the first sense we derive feckless, meaning witless, weak or ineffective;
worthless; irresponsible; indifferent; lazy. Feckless remains a part of the
Modern English and Scottish English lexicons; it appears in a number of Scottish
adages:
"Feckless folk are aye fain o ane anither."
"Feckless fools should keep canny tongues."
In his 1881 short story Thrawn Janet, Robert Louis Stevenson invokes the second
sense of feck as cited above:
"He had a feck o' books wi' him—mair than had ever been seen before in a' that
presbytery..."
Robert Burns uses the third sense of feck in the final stanza of his 1792 poem "Kellyburn
Braes":
I hae been a Devil the feck o' my life,
Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme;
"But ne'er was in hell till I met wi' a wife,"
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
Esperanto
Esperanto usage of fek is comparable to use of the word shit in Modern English:
Verb: conjugation of the infinitive feki ("to defecate")
Noun: feces; excrement.
Interjection: "Fek!" is analogous to "Shit!".
The similarity between the Esperanto fek and the Irish English expletive feck is
coincidental. The etymology of the Esperanto fek is traceable to the Latin noun
faex (singular form of faeces).
Pop culture
The Channel 4 situation comedy Father Ted inadvertently helped to export and
popularise this use of feck through its characters' liberal use of the word. In
an interview, Dermot Morgan explained that, in Ireland, feck is far less
offensive than fuck.
The word "feck" also frequently appears extensively in the Nintendo 64 video
game Conker's Bad Fur Day, in which the word replaces "fuck" in all instances.
It should be noted, however, that this substitution is in no way trying to limit
cursing; the game itself is riddled with blatant swearing and innuendo. It is
not known whether this substitution is due to the nationality of the producers
or simply to give the game a lighter mood.
The word "feck" is also used in the movie Almost Famous by Cameron Crowe, as an
alternative to the word "fuck". A teen girl (played by Zooey Deschanel) who is
angry at her overbearing, strict mother (Frances McDormand) shouts, "Feck you!"
Her mother is taken back by this, stating aside to her 11-year-old son (Michael
Angarano), "I can't believe she said the F-word," to which he replies, "I think
she said 'feck'."
In Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Captain Barbossa
refers to his crew as a "feckless pack of ingrates".
In the 1981 film Caveman, "feck" is used as a general term of disparagement.
After Atouk's band of misfits defeats Tonda, the crowd joins in proclaiming "Tonda
feck! Atouk! Atouk! ATOUK!"
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