fairy
n. · adj.-
1 magical creature (n.) B1 Intermediatea small, magical creature in stories that looks like a person and often has wings.
a mythical being of folklore and legend, typically depicted as having magical powers and a human-like form.
ExampleThe children believed that a fairy lived at the bottom of the garden.
ExampleVictorian illustrators often reimagined the fairy as a tiny, winged sprite, a departure from the more dangerous beings found in earlier Celtic folklore.
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2 delicate or whimsical (adj.) C1 Advanced Literarylooking or feeling like a fairy; very light, delicate, or magical.
resembling or characteristic of a fairy, particularly in terms of being fanciful, whimsical, or physically delicate.
ExampleThe dancer moved with a fairy grace that captivated the entire audience.
ExampleThe morning frost had created fairy patterns on the windowpane, intricate and fragile enough to vanish at a single touch.
From Middle English faierie, fairie, from Old French faerie, from fae + -erie, from Latin fāta (“goddess of fate”). Equivalent to fay + -ry. Attested in English from about 1330, in King Alisaunder, first in the sense of "enchantment, illusion, dream" ("that thou herdest is fairye") and shortly thereafter "realm of the fays, fairy-land" and "the inhabitants of fairyland, collectively". The re-interpretation of the term as a countable noun denoting individual inhabitants of fairy-land can be traced to the 1390s, but became common only in the 16th century, perhaps due to reinterpreting phrases like faerie knight.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Last updated June 19, 2026