An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/feige
feige, adj., ‘cowardly, dastardly,’ from MidHG. veige, OHG. feigi, adj., ‘doomed to death, accursed, unhappy,’ then also ‘timid, cowardly’ (in the ModHG. sense feige is wanting in the UpG. dialects); comp. OSax. fêgi, ‘doomed to death,’ Hess. fêg, Du. veeg, veege, ‘on the point of death,’ AS. fœ̂ge, Scotch fey, OIc. feigr, ‘doomed to death, on the point of death.’ In the sense of ‘fated to die,’ the adj. is primit. Teut. (Goth. *faigs). It has also been compared with Sans. pakvás, ‘ripe,’ so that the Teut. cognates would represent pêkj, pêki (with an inserted vowel); comp. feil. Far more improbable is the assumption that it is connected with Goth. faihs, OHG. fêh, AS. 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 Lith. paíkas, ‘stupid, silly,’ others, again, with an OSax. féhian, ‘to condemn.’ See Fehme.