airy-fairy

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“
It's all this airy-fairy "healer" stuff Steyn's talking about.

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Definitions (2)

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  1. noun One that is insubstantial or impractical: "They'd wanted him for Ambassador in Paris but he'd turned it down; he'd no patience with the airy-fairies” (John le Carré).
  2. adjective Insubstantial or impractical: "You are talking about some airy fairy concept which will never come in my lifetime” (Margaret Thatcher).

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Examples (48)

  • In demonstrating how right-wing parties extol selfishness as a virtue, Frank claims that GOP leaders "laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense." —  DownWithTyranny!
  • You know, if Greenwald is a bit self-gratifying and embarrassingly self-obsessed in his extensive personal wank of an "About," maybe I've been a little too airy-fairy cocktail-party blase, bogus pretentious offhand in mine. —  Jules Crittenden
  • Long renowned for airy-fairy, beat laden electro-dance-pop-hop, they are rarely the subject of chin stroking dinner party conversations, but rarely missing from the big summer festival line-up. —  Clickmusic
  • So they can give an airy-fairy description of "cool" things like super conductivity and MRI machines but cannot calculate the current in a circuit with two resistors. —  RealClimate
  • No airy-fairy namby-pamby committee-written-and-approved politically correct nonsense. —  Harry's Place
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