Fedn.1
/fɛd/, U.S. /fɛd/ U.S. colloquial. Now historical.
A member or supporter of the Federalist party, in the early years of American independence. Cf. federalist n.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > American politics > [noun] > principles or policies > adherents or supporters of
well-born1629
liberty boy1766
federalist1787
anti1788
Fed1788
monocrat1792
anti-federal1805
blue light1814
dough face1820
colonizationist1823
slavite1831
hunker1849
states' righter1861
slavist1889
Little American1899
New Frontiersman1923
America Firster1927
new federalist1969
angry white male1991
angry white man1993
AWM1994
1788 Impartial Gazetteer & Saturday Evening's Post (N.Y.) 24 May This state is purely federal—apropos, of federalism—The famous Dr. Spring..asked a lady on which side she was, fed, or antifed.
1801 Spirit of Farmers' Museum 56 There Feds shall cease to charge the Antis With making Frenchmen rule brave yankees.
1807 W. Irving Life & Lett. (1864) I. xii. 187 I had three or four good Feds sprawling around me on the floor.
1848 Campaign Flag (Maysville, Kentucky) 24 Mar. 1/1 The feds have got to polling the passengers on steam-boats again.
1947 W. Pennsylvania Hist. Mag. Mar. 22 There were few marriageable men left in the narrow confines to which the aristocratic ‘Feds’ had limited themselves.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
Fedn.2
/fɛd/, U.S. /fɛd/ Chiefly colloquial.
1. U.S. A soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–5); = federal n. 2. Usually in plural. Now historical.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > American politics > [noun] > support of Union in Civil War > supporter
unionist1815
Fed1861
federal1861
unioner1861
Union man1861
Tory1862
red-leg1863
1861 Weekly Raleigh (N. Carolina) Reg. 13 Nov. A Fed told him if he didn't behave himself they would do him in the same way, whereupon he told him they would have to kill him first.
1863 Galveston (Texas) Weekly News 21 Jan. The Feds charged us repeatedly, but the men stood there as firm as the oaks around them.
1879 R. S. Bevier Hist. First & Second Missouri Confederate Brigades i. xvi. 149 You boys can out-run the devil when you are after a Fed.
1902 W. I. Yopp Dual Role viii. 50 The Feds, however, after some little unimportant skirmishing with the ‘boys’ in gray took shelter behind the Federal picket lines at Memphis.
1962 Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biogr. 70 465 The Examiner reported that the Feds got ‘anathemas’ from the audience, and that James Harrison as [General] Fremont ‘was especially vituperated and insulted’.
2014 Sarasota (Florida) Herald Tribune (Nexis) 24 Feb. bnv1 Some 45 miles west of Jacksonville, the feds suffered 1,861 casualties in defeat and the South sustained 946 killed, wounded or missing.
2.
a. U.S. A federal law-enforcement agent; esp. a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Esp. in the Feds.
ΘΚΠ
society > law > law enforcement > investigation of crime > [noun] > detective > American
Fed1916
G-man1930
society > authority > rule or government > ruler or governor > a or the government > civil service > [noun] > civil servant > member(s) of U.S. federal agency
uncle1849
Fed1916
1916 A. Stringer Door of Dread iv. 53 Seein' Kestner and yuh'd told me the Feds had ev'rything fixt, I give him the glassy eye.
1935 Lit. Digest 22 June 38 ‘G Men’ have also been called ‘feds’.
1955 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. No. 24. 47 Anyway, the Feds got the letter where I sent him $400.
1972 Village Voice 1 June 5/2 'What are you doing waving a gun around in a town like this?' was what he said to the fed.
2003 N.Y. Mag. 20 Jan. 26/3 The Feds went to great lengths to tell the media about these prosecutions.
b. Originally slang (Australian and British). A police officer. In plural with the: the police. In Australian usage, now specifically referring to the Australian Federal Police (formed in 1979).
ΘΚΠ
society > law > law enforcement > police force or the police > [noun] > policeman
truncheon officer1708
runner1735
horny1753
nibbing-cull1775
nabbing-cull1780
police officer1784
police constable1787
policeman1788
scout1789
nabman1792
nabber1795
pig1811
Bow-street officer1812
nab1813
peeler1816
split1819
grunter1823
robin redbreast1824
bulky1828
raw (or unboiled) lobster1829
Johnny Darm1830
polis1833
crusher1835
constable1839
police1839
agent1841
johndarm1843
blue boy1844
bobby1844
bluebottle1845
copper1846
blue1848
polisman1850
blue coat1851
Johnny1851
PC1851
spot1851
Jack1854
truncheonist1854
fly1857
greycoat1857
cop1859
Cossack1859
slop1859
scuffer1860
nailerc1863
worm1864
Robert1870
reeler1879
minion of the law1882
ginger pop1887
rozzer1888
nark1890
bull1893
grasshopper1893
truncheon-bearer1896
John1898
finger1899
flatty1899
mug1903
John Dunn1904
John Hop1905
gendarme1906
Johnny Hop1908
pavement pounder1908
buttons1911
flat-foot1913
pounder1919
Hop1923
bogy1925
shamus1925
heat1928
fuzz1929
law1929
narker1932
roach1932
jonnop1938
grass1939
roller1940
Babylon1943
walloper1945
cozzer1950
Old Bill1958
cowboy1959
monaych1961
cozzpot1962
policeperson1965
woolly1965
Fed1966
wolly1970
plod1971
roz1971
Smokey Bear1974
bear1975
beast1978
woodentop1981
Five-O1983
dibble1990
Bow-street runner-
1966 P. Cowan Seed 2 The car began to gain speed... ‘Better take it easy. The feds might pick us up.’
1980 Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Sept. 28/2 (headline) After a year under Woods, the Feds grow teeth.
1987 Advertiser (Adelaide) (Nexis) 17 Feb. She also talks of being too scared to collect her own mail from the post office for fear of being ‘spotted by the Feds’ (Federal police).
1997 ‘Q’ Deadmeat 342 ‘She knew my headmistress would sack me. And then I would be in an even worse situation, and do you know what she did..?’ ‘Called the Feds.’
2011 Independent (Nexis) 9 Aug. (Extra section) 4 If you see a brother..salute! If you see a fed..shoot!
2012 Herald Sun (Austral.) (Nexis) 8 June (News section) 21 A mysterious tip-off..had Melbourne airport crawling with Feds before dawn.
3. With the. The Federal Reserve. Also: a Federal Reserve district bank. See Federal Reserve n.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > money > funds or pecuniary resources > [noun] > of a sovereign or state
exchequer1565
fiscal1590
fisc1599
finances1656
the public purse1659
public finance1676
Consolidated Fund1753
federal fund1836
money supply1871
treasury-chest1877
Federal Reserve1913
Fed1942
monetary aggregate1946
1942 Sun (Baltimore) 23 Feb. 12/1 With the ‘Fed’ always ready to support the market, why worry?
1948 Collier's 27 Nov. 66/2 Because of these and other precautions, which must remain secret, the Fed [= the Federal Reserve Bank of New York] has never been broken into.
1950 Economist 9 Dec. 1043/2 By selling masses of government securities at improved yields, the ‘Fed’ managed to nudge interest rates in the right direction.
1979 Newsweek 17 Nov. 78 So far, the new Fed chief has lived up to his reputation as a believer in tight monetary policy.
2013 Wall St. Jrnl. 7 Dec. a4/5 The Fed's strategy is to keep pressing this low interest-rate message.
4. In plural with the.
a. U.S. The federal government or its agencies; = federal n. 3a.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > ruler or governor > a or the government > [noun] > the American government
big government1925
Washingtona1930
Feds1943
1943 Cumberland (Maryland) Evening Times 27 Sept. 3/3 The in-migrant family, so the Feds say, is classed in most land-lording minds with the Okies of tragic Dust Bowl memory.
1976 Audubon May 34/2 The war they are waging in Alaska may not be surreal after all. Perhaps it is super-real. I mean the war against the feds, the outsiders, the interferers.
1992 Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times 2 Feb. (Sunday Weekly section) 2/4 The New York Democrat says, the federal aid formula was fixed so that ‘only if you waited until the thing fell apart the Feds would pay to put it back together’, rather than ‘fixing the first crack’.
2010 Wall St. Jrnl. 16 Mar. a23/5 The response from Washington is more calls for a ‘public option’ Internet, built by the feds and by states and municipalities to compete with the private networks.
b. Canadian and Australian. The national government, its agencies, or its elected officials, esp. as opposed to state, provincial, or territorial authorities. Also (Australian): the federal branch of a political party.
ΚΠ
1966 Canada Month Nov. 6/2 [The Social Insurance Number] was just a number ‘to help you’, just a way for the Feds to give you a little money when you were old or out of work.
1970 Austral. Q. Dec. 9 The possibility of a split if the ‘feds’ should by any chance get a bit above themselves in handling his State branch.
1978 Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 14/1 At the moment they're leaving it all to Joh, whom they can trust to see that the Feds don't pull any swifties.
1990 Sunday Mail (S. Austral.) (Nexis) 13 May The Feds have offered the States a $100 million grant to clean up their accident ‘black spots’.
1991 Screen 32 429 The townsfolk of Rimouski [in Quebec] were up in arms in the winter of 1990–1 after the feds took their tv away.
2011 Yukon News (Nexis) 31 Aug. (Insight section) 7 The good news is that the feds have given the Yukon another revenue stream of up to $40 million a year.
Compounds
Fed funds n. (also with lower-case initial in the first element) U.S. Finance (a) surpluses of reserve deposits held in the Federal Reserve system, which can be traded between member banks; federal funds (see federal fund n. 2); (b) attributive (also in singular) of or relating to the active trade in surpluses of federal funds, as Fed funds rate, Fed funds target, etc.
ΚΠ
1965 Barron's National Business & Finance Weekly 19 July 25/2 The money market remains taut, as borrowings by member banks at the Federal Reserve Bank stay rather high, and Fed funds, with infrequent exceptions, are traded at 4⅛% and sometimes 4¼%.
1975 Washington Post 9 Mar. (Business & Finance section) g2/3 Whenever the Fed is confronted with trying to hit its Fed funds target or its money growth target, it invariably decides to hit the Fed funds target.
1988 A. Saunders & T. Urich in E. Dimson Stock Market Anomalies ii. v. 67 We would also expect to see this behavior reflected in the daily pattern of money center Fed fund net purchases.
2002 Amer. Banker 13 Dec. [The Federal Home Loan banks] also invest in high-quality mortgage-backed securities and short-term bank obligations, primarily fed funds.
2014 USA Today (Nexis) 10 Jan. (Money section) b1 Most savings rates, such as those offered by banks, track the fed funds rate pretty closely.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
fedadj.
/fɛd/, U.S. /fɛd/ 1.
a. Supplied with food; (hence) nourished. Chiefly with modifying adverb, or as the second element in compounds with preceding noun indicating a manner of feeding or type of food. Also figurative.Recorded earliest in well-fed adj. See also fat-fed adj. at fat adj. and n.2 Special uses 2, full-fed adj. at full adj., n.2, and adv. Compounds 1a(b).bacon-fed, corn-fed, grass-fed, rump-fed, stall-fed, etc. : see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > providing or receiving food > [adjective] > fed or nourished
yfeda1100
foddereda1382
feda1398
nourishedc1400
refed1916
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. vii. xiii. 358 The þridde manere of crampe..falliþ ofte to fat men, and fleisschy, and wel ifedde.
?a1425 (a1415) Lanterne of Liȝt (Harl.) (1917) 134 In þis world ȝe ben riche. faat fed. lauȝyng.
1483 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 89074) (1881) 124 Fedd, pastus, cibatus.
1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 389 One of the feeid and fed seruants of ye Pope.
a1616 W. Shakespeare All's Well that ends Well (1623) ii. ii. 3 I will shew my selfe highly fed . View more context for this quotation
1621 M. Wroth Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania 378 His fed imagination..is so soone made to sterue againe.
1645 E. Gayton Chartæ Scriptæ 19 As much delight the Infant Navell-fed, Takes in his meat, as when'ts unrelished.
1750 W. Ellis Country Housewife's Family Compan. 106 Many..will buy our Pease-fed Bacon, in refusal of all other Bacon.
1805 Farmer's Mag. Nov. 460 Clover-fed cattle.
1820 L. Hunt Indicator 8 Mar. 175 Orbing their blood-fed bellies in and out.
1856 J. Ruskin Mod. Painters III. 339 Every sob of wreck-fed breaker round those Pontic precipices.
1928 P. O'Donnell Islanders ii. 17 Boiled milk..was a thing to arouse interest among even better-fed children than the Doogans.
1965 Newsday 13 Apr. 42/2 Circuses in general may or may not seem like big-time adventure to today's television-fed children.
2014 N.Y. Times 1 Jan. (Late ed.) d5/2 That confluence of soil, flora, climate and, increasingly, a meat's back story has ignited a global love affair with forest-fed pigs.
b. Of livestock or poultry: fattened for use as food; = fatted adj.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > animal keeping practices general > [adjective] > fattened
fatc1000
refetc1380
fedc1400
masteda1500
well-fatted1540
fatted1552
fattened1616
saginated1791
c1400 (?c1380) Cleanness (1920) l. 56 My boles and my borez arn bayted and slayne, And my fedde foulez fatted wyth sclaȝt.
1473 in C. Rogers Rental Bk. Cupar-Angus (1879) I. 178 iiij dusane of fed gysce, takand for the fedyng of tham xxiiijs.
1535 Bible (Coverdale) Luke xv. 27 Thy father hath slayne a fed calfe because he hath receaued him safe and sounde.
c1550 Complaynt Scotl. (1979) vi. 31 The fox follouit the fed geise.
a1623 W. Pemble Introd. Worthy Receiving Sacrament (1628) 61 The blood of bullocks, and fat of fed beasts.
a1653 Z. Boyd Sel. Serm. (1989) ii. 53 Many are like Herod..the fed oxe of incest which laye loweing in a filthy stable would he not kill.
1700 J. Gordon Observ. Fables of Æsop 31 Like a fedd Ox for the slaughter.
1731 J. Trapp tr. Virgil Eclogues v, in tr. Virgil Wks. I. 49 Daphnis, not One at That ill-omen'd Time, Drove his fed Cattle to the cooling Streams.
1928 H. M. Conway Livestock Rev. 1927 (U.S. Dept. Agric.) 3 In view of the unsatisfactory market for fed cattle in 1926, feeders were inclined to take profits early in the year.
1988 Farm & Country 24 May 9/2 Higher feeders, fed cattle, and retail beef prices will probably be seen as prices respond to declining beef supplies.
2012 S. M. Russell Controlling Salmonella in Poultry Production & Processing iii. 17 The FSIS-regulated commodities, steers and heifers (i.e., young fed cattle), cows and bulls (i.e., older cattle), ground beef, [etc.]
2. As the second element in compounds: provided with material by the means specified by the first element; spec. (a) (of a body of water, watercourse, etc.) filled by the specified means; (b) (of a machine, device, etc.) fuelled or supplied in the specified manner.Recorded earliest in snow-fed adj. at snow n.1 Compounds 3a(a).coal-fed, gravity-fed, oil-fed, reel-fed, spring-fed, etc.: see the first element.
ΚΠ
1726 J. Thomson Winter (ed. 2) 52 A thousand, Snow-fed, Torrents.
1754 G. Jeffreys tr. J. Vanière Country Farm i, in G. Jeffreys Misc. in Verse & Prose 182 Let oil-fed lamps, and wool, within be pent, And cover close with boards the narrow vent.
1830 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 603/2 Thou glory of Argyleshire, rill-and-river-fed, sea-arm-like, floating in thy majesty, magnificent Lock Awe!
1854 J. D. Hooker Himalayan Jrnls. II. 159 Glacier-fed lakes.
1886 J. Ruskin Præterita II. vii. 235 A clear dashing stream, not ice fed, but mere fountain and rainfall.
1945 C. E. Balleisen Princ. Firearms i. 3 At first these were multiple-barreled weapons, but they were soon succeeded by hopper-fed, crank-operated mechanical guns.
1971 Daily Tel. 21 July 11/2 The normal carburettor-fed 2002 is one of the fastest cars in its class.
2008 N.Y. Mag. 3 Nov. 60/4 Back-float around the waterfall-fed swimming pool.
3. colloquial. In predicative use. Having had enough of a person or situation; annoyed, unhappy, or bored; = fed up adj. at Compounds. Often in intensifying phrases, as fed to the (back) teeth, fed to death; see also fed to the neck at neck n.1 Phrases 12b.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > feeling of weariness or tedium > [adjective]
irk1303
tedious1430
irksome1435
irked1513
ennuyé1757
seccatored1763
yawny1805
bored1823
used up1839
yawnish1855
fed up1900
fed to the (back) teeth1921
browned off1938
brassed1941
cheesed1941
chocker1942
pissy1962
1921 W. S. Maugham Circle iii. 100 I should be fed to the teeth with you sometimes.
1921 P. G. Wodehouse Indiscretions of Archie i. 11 I've never done anything much in England, and I fancy the family were getting a bit fed.
1922 A. S. M. Hutchinson This Freedom iv. iv. 293 Oh, those sickening scarves and things, they were eternally knitting, that wasn't war work. It was fun at first. They were fed to death with doing them now.
1946 P. Larkin Jill 30 I'm getting definitely fed..with them all.
1961 ‘G. Hythe’ Death of Scapegoat i. iii. 87 The skipper's gettin' fed to the back teeth.
1993 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 12 Aug. 4/2 They were fed to the teeth with hearing about the war and the glorious past.
Compounds
fed up adj. colloquial (originally Military) having had enough of a person or situation; annoyed, unhappy, or bored, esp. with a state of affairs that has persisted for a long time; also in intensifying phrases, as fed up to the back teeth (cf. sense 3).Chiefly in predicative use.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > feeling of weariness or tedium > [adjective]
irk1303
tedious1430
irksome1435
irked1513
ennuyé1757
seccatored1763
yawny1805
bored1823
used up1839
yawnish1855
fed up1900
fed to the (back) teeth1921
browned off1938
brassed1941
cheesed1941
chocker1942
pissy1962
1879 F. Arnold in London Society June 567/2 He himself essentially belongs to ‘the sty of Epicurus’... Fed up to the eyelids himself, it is no care to him that there are other people all otherwise than so well off.]
1900 B. Burleigh in Daily Tel. 20 Oct. 7/1 'Oh, I'm about fed up with it', is the current slang of the camps when officers and men speak of the war.
1914 Evening News 19 Sept. 4/1 We have also seen hundreds of German prisoners, mostly looking ‘fed up’.
1919 C. Dawson Test of Scarlet iii. iv. 208 The infantry are fed up to the back-teeth with the way in which the guns have failed to keep in touch with them.
1955 Times 15 June 9/2 A major relief to a frankly fed-up and frustrated nation.
1970 N. Y. Times 26 Mar. 41/3 I'm just fed up to death with the talk about democracy and the right to dissent.
1991 C. Eddy Stairway to Hell 92/1 Eight years into punk's dole-queue reign..three fed-up spikeheads with no alternatives in sight grab cricket bats and start beating skulls.
2005 A. Bell tr. K. Duve This is not Love Song 86 And now I was really fed up to the back teeth.
Derivatives
fed-'upness n. colloquial the state of feeling fed up.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > feeling of weariness or tedium > [noun]
sada1200
fastidiuma1398
irkingc1400
irksomeness1435
tediousness1482
tediation1485
annuisance1502
weariness1526
wearisomenessa1568
irk1570
languor1596
tedification1616
tedium1662
ennui1758
dullery1841
boredom1853
mawkishness1861
fed-'upness1910
mouldiness1916
browned-offness1938
noia1944
1910 Spectator 3 Dec. 96/23 The exceedingly strenuous Hounslow course..so far from resulting in ‘fed-upness’, had precisely the contrary effect.
1928 D. L. Sayers Unpleasantness at Bellona Club iii. 22 Job gone—health gone—no money..general fedupness.
1961 Times 4 May 13/4 A state of acute ‘browned-offness’ or ‘fed-upness’.
2002 Daily Tel. 26 June 1/8 I have never known a level of mistrust and fed-upness in the British business community with this Government as there is now.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.11788
n.21861
adj.a1398