fife

See also: Fife and Fifer

English

A fife

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /faɪf/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪf

Etymology 1

From German Pfeife. Doublet of pipe. The word is unrelated to Fife in Scotland.

Noun

fife (plural fifes)

1. A small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music

Derived terms

• fife major
• fife-rail

 

Translations

small shrill pipe

• Armenian: թութակ (hy) (tʿutʿak)
• Breton: pif
• Bulgarian: пикола (bg) f (pikola)
• Catalan: pifre
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 橫笛 (zh), 横笛 (zh) (héngdí), 龠 (zh) (yuè)

• Danish: marchfløjte
• Finnish: fife (fi)
• French: fifre (fr) m
• Galician: pínfano (gl) m, pífaro m
• German: Schwegel f, Pfeife (de) f
• Ido: fifro (io)
• Irish: fíf
• Italian: piffero (it) m, fiffaro
• Japanese: 横笛 (ja) (よこぶえ, yokobue)
• Occitan: pifre m
• Portuguese: pífano, pífaro (pt), pife
• Russian: ду́дка (ru) f (dúdka)
• Spanish: pífano m
• Swedish: fältpipa
• Tagalog: tipano
• Welsh: chwibanogl f, pib feinlais f, cadbib f, ffeiff m

Verb

fife (third-person singular simple present fifes, present participle fifing, simple past and past participle fifed)

1. To play this instrument.

Etymology 2

Numeral

fife

1. Used instead of five in radio communications to avoid confusion with fire.

See also

• niner

Anagrams

• fief

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Finnish

Etymology

From English fife.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfife/, [ˈfife̞]
• Rhymes: -ife
• Syllabification^(key): fi‧fe

Noun

fife

1. (music) fife

Declension

Inflection of fife (Kotus type 1/valo, no gradation)
nominative		fife	fifet
genitive		fifen	fifejen
partitive		fifeä	fifejä
illative		fifeen	fifeihin
		singular	plural
nominative		fife	fifet
accusative	nom.	fife	fifet
	gen.	fifen
genitive		fifen	fifejen
partitive		fifeä	fifejä
inessive		fifessä	fifeissä
elative		fifestä	fifeistä
illative		fifeen	fifeihin
adessive		fifellä	fifeillä
ablative		fifeltä	fifeiltä
allative		fifelle	fifeille
essive		fifenä	fifeinä
translative		fifeksi	fifeiksi
instructive		—	fifein
abessive		fifettä	fifeittä
comitative		—	fifeineen

Possessive forms of fife (type valo)
possessor	singular	plural
1st person	fifeni	fifemme
2nd person	fifesi	fifenne
3rd person	fifensä

Synonyms

• fife-huilu
• sveitsinhuilu

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Italian

Noun

fife f

1. plural of fifa