An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/feige
feige, adjective, ‘cowardly, dastardly,’ from Middle High German veige, Old High German feigi, adjective, ‘doomed to death, accursed, unhappy,’ then also ‘timid, cowardly’ (in the Modern High German sense feige is wanting in the Upper German dialects); compare Old Saxon fêgi, ‘doomed to death,’ Hessian fêg, Dutch veeg, veege, ‘on the point of death,’ Anglo-Saxon fœ̂ge, Scotch fey, Old Icelandic feigr, ‘doomed to death, on the point of death.’ In the sense of ‘fated to die,’ the adjective is primitively Teutonic (Gothic *faigs). It has also been compared with Sanscrit pakvás, ‘ripe,’ so that the Teutonic cognates would represent pêkj, pêki (with an inserted vowel); compare feil. Far more improbable is the assumption that it is connected with Gothic faihs, Old High German fêh, Anglo-Saxon fâh, ‘variegated,’ as is it were thought that the person doomed to death by the fates was distinguished by some coloured mark. Some compare it with the cognates discussed under Fehde, some with Lithuanian paíkas, ‘stupid, silly,’ others, again, with an Old Saxon féhian, ‘to condemn.’ See Fehme.