Meaning
2 sensesAn enemy.
a personal enemy
A unit of energy equal to 10⁴⁴ joules.
Examples
26 sentencesAre you a friend or foe?
ruТы друг или враг? — marafon
deBist du Freund oder Feind? — Waldelfe
We have to defeat our foes.
Ми маємо перемогти наших ворогів. — deniko
We must defeat our foes.
Ми маємо перемогти наших ворогів. — deniko
We must vanquish our foes.
Ми маємо перемогти наших ворогів. — deniko
The two political parties are irreconcilable foes.
Origin
From Middle English fo (“foe; hostile”), from earlier yfoh, yvo, ifa (“foe”), from Old EngFrom 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”)).
Acronym of [ten to the power of] fifty-one ergs, due to equalling 10⁵¹ ergs; coined by Gerald Brown of Stony Brook University in his work with Hans Bethe.
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Forms
plural: foesSynonyms
6 synonyms- a personal enemy:enemy
- an armed adversary (especially a member of an opposing military force):enemyopposition