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Fairy   /fˈɛri/   Listen
noun
Fairy  n.  (pl. fairies)  (Written also faery)  
1.
Enchantment; illusion. (Obs.) "The God of her has made an end, And fro this worlde's fairy Hath taken her into company."
2.
The country of the fays; land of illusions. (Obs.) "He (Arthur) is a king y-crowned in Fairy."
3.
An imaginary supernatural being or spirit, supposed to assume a human form (usually diminutive), either male or female, and to meddle for good or evil in the affairs of mankind; a fay. See Elf, and Demon. "The fourth kind of spirit (is) called the Fairy." "And now about the caldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring."
4.
An enchantress. (Obs.)
Fairy of the mine, an imaginary being supposed to inhabit mines, etc. German folklore tells of two species; one fierce and malevolent, the other gentle, See Kobold. "No goblin or swart fairy of the mine Hath hurtful power over true virginity."


adjective
Fairy  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to fairies.
2.
Given by fairies; as, fairy money.
Fairy bird (Zool.), the Euoropean little tern (Sterna minuta); called also sea swallow, and hooded tern.
Fairy bluebird. (Zool.) See under Bluebird.
Fairy martin (Zool.), a European swallow (Hirrundo ariel) that builds flask-shaped nests of mud on overhanging cliffs.
Fairy rings or Fairy circles, the circles formed in grassy lawns by certain fungi (as Marasmius Oreades), formerly supposed to be caused by fairies in their midnight dances; also, the mushrooms themselves. Such circles may have diameters larger than three meters.
Fairy shrimp (Zool.), a European fresh-water phyllopod crustacean (Chirocephalus diaphanus); so called from its delicate colors, transparency, and graceful motions. The name is sometimes applied to similar American species.
Fairy stone (Paleon.), an echinite.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Fairy" Quotes from Famous Books



... observed, that a power to recall at will pleasing objects would be a more valuable gift to any mortal than ever was bestowed in a fairy tale. With this power Emma was endowed in the highest perfection; and as fast as our heroine recollected some evil that had happened, or was likely to happen, Emma raised the opposite idea of some good, past, present, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... too have seen the castled West, Her Cornish creeks, her Breton ports, Her caves by knees of hermits pressed, Her fairy islets bright with quartz: And dearer now each well-known scene, For what shall be than ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... Angelina lead the mazy dance down; Never did fairy trip it so fantastic; How my heart flutters, while my tongue ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... trees; where in the vestibules, under the porticos and between the granite pillars, Caryatides and Hermes, symbols of immobility, gaze at the immutable symmetry of the verdant lawns; and the Villa Medici—like a forest of emerald green spreading away in a fairy tale, and the Villa Ludovici—a little wild—redolent of violets, consecrated by the presence of that Juno adored by Goethe in the days when the plane-trees and the cypresses, that one might well have thought immortal, had already begun to tremble with the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... heavens, poured down a flood of summer heat and radiance, that rendered these cool shades inexpressibly delightful. Pleasant was it, as the huntsmen leaped from stone to stone, to listen to the sound of the waters rushing past them. Pleasant as they sprang upon some green holm or fairy islet, standing in the midst of the stream, and dividing its lucid waters, to suffer the eye to follow the course of the rapid current, and to see it here sparkling in the bright sunshine, there plunged in shade by the overhanging ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth


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