Other forms: foes
A foe is an enemy, in formal or literary use. A worthy foe, friend and foe alike, an old foe.
It survives chiefly because it is short and rhymes, so headlines and poetry keep it alive where speech does not. Friend or foe is the standard pairing, and it is also the name of the identification systems aircraft carry.
1nounfoeAn enemy, in formal or literary use.
“The two kings had been bitter foes for years before they finally made peace.”
foe is an enemy.
Old English gefah means an enemy, from fah, hostile. Feud is a distant relative.
Proto-Indo-European
*peyḱ- — to hate, be hostile
Proto-Germanic
*faihaz
Proto-West Germanic
*faih
Old English
ġefāh — enemy
Middle English
fo — foe; hostile
English, today
foe
Built from
From Middle English fo (“foe; hostile”), from earlier yfoh, yvo, ifa (“foe”), from Old English ġefāh (“enemy”), from fāh (“hostile”), from Proto-West Germanic faih, from Proto-Germanic faihaz (compare Old Frisian fāch (“punishable”), Middle High German gevēch (“feuder”)), from Proto-Indo-European peyḱ- (“to hate, be hostile”) (compare mga óech (“enemy, fiend”), Lithuanian pìktas (“evil”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA