faerie

See also: færie and faërie

English

The Faerie Queene, as depicted in 1788.

Alternative forms

• færie (archaic, nonstandard)
• faërie

Etymology

A deliberately archaic spelling of fairy (attested since the 1300s in spellings like fairye, fayre), based on Old French faerie, used in 1590 by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene.

Noun

faerie (countable and uncountable, plural faeries)

1. Archaic spelling of fairy.
   • 1985 February 2, Tim Broadbent, “Kindred Spirits (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 28, page 10:

     All these stories are based upon the classic structure of the faerie tale and are highly enjoyable (and, yes, they end "happily ever after"). But they can provide much more than that.

2. Realm of the fays, fairyland.

Derived terms

• faeriecore
• faeriedom
• faerie godmother
• faeriekind
• faerie tale

References

• Faerie, in Compact Oxford English Dictionary.

Anagrams

• feriae

Old French

Alternative forms

• faierie

Etymology

fae +‎ -erie

Noun

faerie f

1. the sphere or realm of enchantment, magic or dream associated with the fae (fays)

Derived terms

• French: féerie, féérie (post-1990 spelling)
  • → Bulgarian: фее́рия (feérija)
  • → English: féerie
  • → German: Feerie
  • → Polish: feeria
  • → Romanian: feerie
  • → Russian: фее́рия (fejérija), феерія (fejerija) — Pre-reform orthography (1918)
    • → Azerbaijani: feeriya
    • → Kazakh: феерия (feeriä)
    • → Kyrgyz: феерия (feyeriya)
    • → Turkmen: feýeriýa
    • → Uzbek: feyeriya
  • → Swedish: feeri
  • → Turkish: feeri
• → Middle English: faierie
  • English: fairy, fairie, faerie, faery
  • Scots: fairy, faerie, faery