fairy
/ˈfɛːri
/noun (plural fairies)
1A small imaginary being of human form that has magical powers, especially a female one: she believed she had had fairies at the bottom of her garden [as modifier]: fairy gold...
- I love magical things like fairies and goblins.
- The fairies occupied the land in many parts of the world, yet just like the multiple races of humans or demons, fairies have several of their own.
- It says everything your inner child wants to hear: believe in fairies and the powers of the imagination; and no matter how bad real life can become, you can always visit Neverland.
Synonyms
sprite, pixie, elf, imp, brownie, puck;
dwarf, gnome, goblin, hobgoblin, troll;
Scottish Folklore kelpie;
Irish Folklore leprechaun, pishogue, Sidhe;
South African Folklore tokoloshe;
Persian Mythology peri
literary faerie, fay
rare nix, nixie, hob, elfin
2A Central and South American hummingbird with a green back and long tail.
- Genus Heliothryx, family Trochilidae: two species.
3 informal, offensive A male homosexual.
Phrases
away with the fairies
Derivatives
fairylike
/ adjective ...- Small fountains and courtyards drew her in; they seemed, in Guinevere's imagination, small pieces of another world; fairylike, ornate, and delicate.
- Driving back we got the same thrill we always do at seeing Butte at night… It is so fairylike with its twinkling lights and so startling in a black wilderness.
- Please take a brief walk back in time with me, as I share with you a bit of history about the exquisite, fairylike Rocky Mountain columbine.
Origin
Middle English (denoting fairyland, or fairies collectively): from Old French faerie, from fae, 'a fairy', from Latin fata 'the Fates', plural of fatum (see fate). Compare with fay.
Although we now think of fairies as small, delicate creatures they come from a powerful source—Latin fata ‘the Fates’ (see fate). The old spelling faerie is first recorded in The Faerie Queene, the title of a poem by Edmund Spenser celebrating Queen Elizabeth I (the figure of the ‘Faerie Queene’ herself was taken to stand for Elizabeth). Faerie was originally the collective form of the word, with fae or nowadays fay as the singular.