dey

• (UK) IPA^(key): /deɪ/
• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Homophone: day

From Middle English deye, deie, daie, from Old English dǣġe (“maker of bread; baker; dairy-maid”), 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.

• daie, deie, deye

dey (plural deys)

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

• dairy
• lady

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

dey (plural deys)

1. (historical) The ruler of the Regency of Algiers (now Algeria) under the Ottoman Empire.
   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 29:

     […] 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’.

dey

1. Pronunciation spelling of they, representing dialects with th-stopping in English.
2. Pronunciation spelling of there, representing African American Vernacular English or Caribbean English.

   G. Modele Dale Clarke (2012) Up in Mahaica: Stories from the Market People (ebook), Xlibris: ““Boy, is horrors over dey, for so,” he said, obviously excited and anxious to be the bearer of extraordinary news. “Wat happen, somebody dead?””

(Can we add an example for this sense?)

• dey in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “dey”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• Dye, d'ye, dye, ye'd, yed

• IPA^(key): /de/

From English there.

dey

1. there is, there are, indicates presence in a location

• deiy

• na (“copula for noun phrases, indicates existence”)

From English they.

dey

1. they, 3rd person plural subject personal pronoun

From English day.

dey

1. day

• dei

From Ottoman Turkish دایی‎ (dayı), from Persian دایی‎ (dâyi, “maternal uncle”).

• IPA^(key): /dɛj/

• Audio

  (file)

dey m (plural deys)

1. dey (ruler of the Regency of Algiers)

• “dey”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): /teiː/
• Rhymes: -eiː

dey

1. inflection of deyja:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish دایی‎ (dayı), from Persian دایی‎ (dâyi, “maternal uncle”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɛj/[1][2]
• Rhymes: -ɛj

dey m (invariable)

1. dey (ruler of the Regency of Algiers)

dey

1. Alternative form of day

dey

1. Alternative form of þei (“they”)

dey

1. Alternative form of dee

• deh

From English there.

dey

1. is, are

dey

1. inflection of deyja:
   1. first-person singular present active indicative
   2. second-person singular present active imperative

dey

1. Alternative form of die (“day”)
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 2:

     Ch'am a stouk, an a donel; wou'll leigh out ee dey.

     I am a fool and a dunce; we'll idle out the day.

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 84

• IPA^(key): /dey/

dey

1. foot, leg
2. footstep

• Beria-English English-Beria Dictionary [provisional] ADESK, Iriba, Kobe Department, Chad