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dey

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dey¹

  • /deɪ/ UK

Sounds like day · Rhymes with -eɪ

Where it comes from

From Middle English deye, deie, daie, from Old English dǣġe (“maker of bread; baker; dairy-maid”), from Proto-West Germanic *daigijā, from Proto-Germanic *daigijǭ (“kneader of bread, maid”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to knead, form, build”). Cognate with Swedish deja, Icelandic deigja (“dairy-maid”); compare dairy, dough, lady.

noun deys · dai · dei · deye

  1. Scotland, UK, dialectal A servant who has charge of the dairy; a dairymaid.

dey²

  • /deɪ/ UK

Sounds like day · Rhymes with -eɪ

Where it comes from

From French dey, from Algerian Arabic داي from Ottoman Turkish دایی (modern Turkish dayı).

noun deys

  1. historical The ruler of the Regency of Algiers (now Algeria) under the Ottoman Empire. […] the reigning Dey of Algiers (half of whose twenty-eight predecessors are said to have met violent ends) lost his temper with the French consul, struck him in the face with a fly-whisk, and called him ‘a wicked, faithless, idol-worshipping rascal’.

dey³

  • /deɪ/ UK

Sounds like day · Rhymes with -eɪ

pronoun

  1. pronunciation spelling Pronunciation spelling of their, representing African-American Vernacular English.
  2. pronunciation spelling Pronunciation spelling of there, representing African-American Vernacular English or Caribbean English. “Boy, is horrors over dey, for so,” he said, obviously excited and anxious to be the bearer of extraordinary news. “Wat happen, somebody dead?”
  3. pronunciation spelling Pronunciation spelling of they, representing dialects with th-stopping in English.

dey⁴

  • [ˈde(ː)] Singapore
  • /deɪ/ UK

Sounds like day · Rhymes with -eɪ

Where it comes from

From Tamil டேய் (“hey!”).

interjection deh · dei

  1. Manglish, Singlish An informal Tamil-language term of address used when trying to get someone's attention. Dey! Did you press the lift button? What? You have pressed the button for the tenth time?

Dey⁵

  • /deɪ/

Sounds like dey, day, Day

Where it comes from

From Persian دی.

proper noun

  1. The tenth solar month of the Persian calendar.

Dey⁶

proper noun

  1. A surname.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: jus, den, cose, jes, comin, hey, ain, deie, dairymaid, dairygirl, dudhwallah, dairy, model dairy, daleswoman, dudder, doormaid

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Cite this
MLA

"dey." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/dey. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

dey. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/dey

Chicago

"dey." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/dey.

BibTeX
@misc{dey_2026,
  title = {dey},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/dey},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}