| / English Dictionary |
FIEND
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An evil supernatural being
Synonyms:
daemon; daimon; demon; devil; fiend
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("fiend" is a kind of...):
evil spirit (a spirit tending to cause harm)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fiend"):
incubus (a male demon believed to lie on sleeping persons and to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women)
succuba; succubus (a female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men)
dibbuk; dybbuk ((Jewish folklore) a demon that enters the body of a living person and controls that body's behavior)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause)
Example:
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject
Synonyms:
fanatic; fiend
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("fiend" is a kind of...):
enthusiast; partisan; partizan (an ardent and enthusiastic supporter of some person or activity)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A cruel wicked and inhuman person
Synonyms:
demon; devil; fiend; monster; ogre
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("fiend" is a kind of...):
disagreeable person; unpleasant person (a person who is not pleasant or agreeable)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fiend"):
demoniac (someone who acts as if possessed by a demon)
Context examples:
You forget—or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing—that I am the train fiend.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
His eyes turned blood-shot, and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, there leaped up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing, waving his arms, and cursing like a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with another hunter as to whether a seal pup knew instinctively how to swim.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the fiend and gained accurate information.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
“You fiend!” he kept on muttering.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
From below the two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the smouldering eyes of some malignant fiend looking down in the darkness.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
With their flashing teeth, their bristling hair, their mad leapings and screamings, they seemed to Alleyne more like fiends from the pit than men of flesh and blood.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
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