fairy

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“
However, I found out some time after, by a strange accident, that my fairy was the wife of a banker who lived beyond Heidelberg; and at Heidelberg I left her and went to the first hotel in the town I had formed no plans, and had no letters to anybody.

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Definitions (24)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A tiny imaginary being in human form, depicted as clever, mischievous, and possessing magical powers.
  2. noun Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a homosexual man.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (18)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • He looked around for the fairy, but the fairy was gone There was only a wet spot where it once had been Back to Table of Contents Imitation of Life by Albert E. Cowdrey Twas not long ago--perhaps two years--when our sometime contributor Ms. Karen Joy Fowler attained bestsellerdom with her examination of modern-day life's foibles through the lens she called The Jane Austen Book Club. —  FSF - May2006
  • In reference to this spiritual creation, the word mish signifies great, or rather big, but as adjectives are, like substantives, transitive, the term requires a transitive objective sign, to mark the thing or person that is big, hence the term michi signifies big spirit, or "fairy"--for it is a kind of pukwudjininne , and not of monetoes that are described. —  Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers
  • Called Pelle, Mikkel and Gullspira, the textiles feature a goat, a fox and a rabbit; inspired by animals found in Swedish fairy tales. —  TreeHugger
  • But Yuki also adds her own sinister twist: the possessed human occasionally proves to be a poor match for the fairy, and the fairy is forced to vacate the body in a deadly, wings-shaped spray of blood that in the manga have become labeled the Fairy Murders by law enforcement assuming a non-supernatural explanation. —  Anime News Network
  • Sources of inspiration are the animals that feature in Swedish fairy tales. —  Dezeen
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English fairie, fairyland, enchanted being, from Old French faerie, from fae, fairy, from Vulgar Latin Fāta, goddess of fate, from Latin fātum, fate; see fate.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Sometimes written archaically (after Old French) faery, faerie (as in Spenser), particularly in the 1st and 2d senses; from Middle English fairye, fayry, fayerye, feyrye, faierie, feiri, etc., enchantment, fairy folk, fairy-land, rarely a fay or fairy, from Old French faerie, faierie, enchantment, modern F. féerie (later G. feerei), enchantment, fairy-land, from Old French fae, modern F. fée, Middle English fay, English fay, a fairy: see fay.
 

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/ˈfɛri/
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