Definition of ferninst

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fer·ninst    (fr-nnst) KEY  also for·nent  (fr-nnt) KEY 

PREPOSITION:
Chiefly Midland U.S.

Opposite, near to, or against: Their barn is ferninst the house.

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ETYMOLOGY:
Dialectal fornent, fornenst : fore + anent, anenst (from Middle English; see anent)
Regional Note:
Ferninst, meaning "opposite, next to, against," first appears in American English in the 1820s, taking a variety of forms: fanent, labeled "Western Dialect" and furnentz, labeled a "vulgarism" "common in . . . Pennsylvania." In 1835, Davy Crockett used yet another spelling: "I walked with them to a room nearly fornent the old state-house." The word is a survivor from dialects of Scotland, Ireland, and northern England, evidently brought over by immigrants from one or more of those places. According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, it is now heard chiefly in the Midland U.S. and is considered old-fashioned. A derived noun, ferninster, meaning "someone who is deliberately contrary," has also been used: "The trouble with the Republican leaders in Congress . . . is that they are just ferninsters" (William Allen White, 1943).