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''fete'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260124114812-00-⌔

fete - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

fete (plural fetes)

  • A festival open to the public, the proceeds from which are often given to charity.
    • ✤ The final fete of the year was held at the Plymouth Hoe on 20 July, where fine weather and crowds of people ensured much support for local charities and boosted club finds.1
    • ✤ She was joined at the New York City fete by fellow Trump throne-sniffer Lee Zeldin, the Long Island congressman who, like Boebert and Staten Island Representative Nicole Malliotakis, were among the cohort of coup supporters who did not vote to certify the 2020 election results—and are now fundraising off a presumptive “Trump’s Majority” in advance of next year’s midterms.2
  • A feast, celebration or carnival.

Verb

fete (third-person singular simple present fetes, present participle feting, simple past and past participle feted)

  • (transitive, usually in the passive) To celebrate (a person).
    • ✤ Synonym: celebrate
    • ✤ Danielle Salamon was also four when she was feted as a musical genius in 1953.3
    • ✤ Saxophonist Pete Wareham, his friend and collaborator in Polar Bear and the critically feted groups Acoustic Ladyland and Fulborn Teversham, soon punctures that idea.4
    • ✤ In another LRB review, he had written after reading Martin Amis’s latest, elsewhere feted as a glorious return to form: “I read The Zone of Interest straight through twice from beginning to end and it feels like I’ve read nothing at all.”5
    • ✤ For three days Emmanuel Macron was wooed and fêted by Donald Trump, treated to marching bands and banquets.6

Etymology

  • The noun derives from French fête. Doublet of feast, fiesta, and fest.
  • The verb derives from French fêter.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: fāt, fet; IPA: /feɪt/, /fɛt/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Homophone: fate
  • Rhymes: -eɪt, -ɛt

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1991, Treasure Hunting, Treasure Hunting Publications: ↩

  2. 2021 September 24, Tom Gogola, “Republican Representative Lauren Boebert Goes Full Blunderbuss”, in The Nation ‎, archived from the original on 1 June 2022, retrieved 1 June 2022: ↩

  3. 1992, Today, News Group Newspapers Ltd: ↩

  4. 2007 April 6, Mike Barnes, “Is this the hardest-working man in music?”, in The Guardian ‎, archived from the original on 15 March 2023: ↩

  5. 2016 April 9, Philip Oltermann, quoting Michael Hofmann, “Michael Hofmann: ‘English is basically a trap. It’s almost a language for spies’”, in The Guardian ‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 14 June 2023: ↩

  6. 2018 April 27, William Cook, “Are Macron and Merkel playing good cop, bad cop with Trump?”, in The Spectator: ↩

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