guy.
An effigy of a man burned on a bonfire on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot (5th November).
Meaning & usage
An effigy of a man burned on a bonfire on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot (5th November).
A person of eccentric appearance or dress; a "fright".
A man or boy; a fellow.
A person (see usage notes).
Anything seen to have character and personality, such as an animal or a toy.
The dog's left foreleg was broken, poor little guy.
dude, Buster, Mack, fella, bud, man.
Hey, guy, give a man a break, would ya?
Thing, item (term that can be used to refer to any entity)
This guy, here, controls the current, and this guy, here, measures the voltage.
This guy is the partial derivative of that guy with respect to x.
Where this word comes from
Coined by semantic widening from the name of Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), an English Catholic executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, which also came to refer to effigies of his image burned annually on Guy Fawkes Night. The name Guy is from Old French Gui, from a Frankish form of Proto-West Germanic *Widō (compare Old Dutch Wido), a short form of names beginning with the element *widu (“wood”), from Proto-Germanic *widuz. Cognate with Italian Guido. Doublet of guido.
To exhibit an effigy of Guy Fawkes around the 5th November.
To make fun of, to ridicule with wit or innuendo.
Where this word comes from
Coined by semantic widening from the name of Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), an English Catholic executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, which also came to refer to effigies of his image burned annually on Guy Fawkes Night. The name Guy is from Old French Gui, from a Frankish form of Proto-West Germanic *Widō (compare Old Dutch Wido), a short form of names beginning with the element *widu (“wood”), from Proto-Germanic *widuz. Cognate with Italian Guido. Doublet of guido.
A guide; a leader or conductor.
A support rope or cable used to aid in hoisting or lowering.
A support to secure or steady structures prone to shift their position or be carried away (e.g. the mast of a ship, a suspension bridge, or a utility pole).
Where this word comes from
From Old French guie, linked to verb guier (“guide”), from Frankish *wītan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *wītaną (“know”). Cognate with English guide.
To equip with a support cable.
Where this word comes from
From Old French guie, linked to verb guier (“guide”), from Frankish *wītan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *wītaną (“know”). Cognate with English guide.
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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.