Fiend Once Simply Meant Enemy
A fiend is a demon or a cruel person. In Old English it meant enemy, and it was the exact opposite of friend.
A fiend is a demon, a cruel person, or an enthusiast — a crossword fiend. Old English *feond* meant simply an enemy, and it was formed the same way as *freond*, friend: both were participles of verbs, one meaning to hate and one meaning to love. Friend and fiend are a matched pair, and only fiend drifted into the supernatural. The enthusiast sense is nineteenth-century and entirely affectionate.
- A demon. *A fiend from hell.*
- A cruel person. *An absolute fiend.*
- An enthusiast. *A crossword fiend.*
- Fiendish — cunning or cruel. *A fiendish puzzle.*
- Friend — the matched opposite. *Friend and fiend.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | fiend | A fiend. |
| Plural | fiends | Two fiends. |
| Adjective | fiendish | Fiendish difficulty. |
| Adverb | fiendishly | Fiendishly clever. |
| Old English | feond | An enemy. |
- The novel's villain is a real fiend.Cruelty.
- He is a fiend for detail.Enthusiast.
- The clue was fiendishly hard.Adjective.
Friend and fiend, side by side
- Freond — Old English, from a verb meaning to love
- Feond — Old English, from a verb meaning to hate
- Both are participles — the loving one and the hating one
- Fiend narrowed to mean a demon in Christian usage
- Friend stayed in its original meaning
Old English *feond*, an enemy, the present participle of *feogan*, to hate. It came to mean a devil under Christian influence.
Are friend and fiend related?
Structurally yes. Both are Old English participles, one from a verb meaning to love and one from a verb meaning to hate.
Is calling someone a crossword fiend an insult?
No. In that sense fiend means an enthusiast and is entirely affectionate.