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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

fax.

The hair of the head.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/fæks/
  1. The hair of the head.

    UK · dialectal · obsolete · uncountable · usually
  2. The face.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Middle English fax, from Old English feax (“hair, head of hair”), from Proto-West Germanic *fahs, from Proto-Germanic *fahsą (“hair, mane”), from Proto-Indo-European *poḱsom (“hair”, literally “that which is combed, shorn, or plucked”), from Proto-Indo-European *peḱ- (“to comb, shear, pluck”). Cognate with Dutch vas (“headhair”), German Fachs (“head-hair”), Norwegian faks (“mane”), Icelandic fax (“mane”), Sanskrit पक्ष्मन् (pákṣman, “eyelash, hair, filament”).

noun/fæks/
  1. Ellipsis of fax machine (“the device for faxing; the medium of communication that it provides”).

    abbreviation · alt-of · countable · ellipsis · uncountable
    OK, now take it down the hall to the fax.
    You can send it via email or fax. You can use an online fax service where you upload a PDF and then send it to a fax number.
  2. A document sent, or received and printed, by a fax machine.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Clipping of facsimile. The use of the noun first appears c. 1946. The verb first appears c. 1979.

verb/fæks/
  1. To send a document by means of a fax machine.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Clipping of facsimile. The use of the noun first appears c. 1946. The verb first appears c. 1979.

noun/fæks/
  1. Nonstandard form of facts.

    alt-of · informal · nonstandard · plural · plural-only
Where this word comes from

Formed with -x from facts; the pronunciation of facts and fax is identical in certain varieties of English.

intj/fæks/
  1. Alternative form of facts (“used to express agreement”).

    alt-of · alternative · informal
Where this word comes from

Formed with -x from facts; the pronunciation of facts and fax is identical in certain varieties of English.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.