What's the difference between airy and fairy?

Airy


Definition:

  • (a.) Consisting of air; as, an airy substance; the airy parts of bodies.
  • (a.) Relating or belonging to air; high in air; aerial; as, an airy flight.
  • (a.) Open to a free current of air; exposed to the air; breezy; as, an airy situation.
  • (a.) Resembling air; thin; unsubstantial; not material; airlike.
  • (a.) Relating to the spirit or soul; delicate; graceful; as, airy music.
  • (a.) Without reality; having no solid foundation; empty; trifling; visionary.
  • (a.) Light of heart; vivacious; sprightly; flippant; superficial.
  • (a.) Having an affected manner; being in the habit of putting on airs; affectedly grand.
  • (a.) Having the light and aerial tints true to nature.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When Philip Roth accepted the biennial International Booker prize honouring some 60 years of his fiction, from Goodbye, Columbus to Nemesis , he sat at a wooden table in the studio adjoining his airy Connecticut retreat looking as much like a retired priest, or judge, as the Grand Old Man of American letters, pushing 79.
  • (2) All of which makes it curious to find the film's stars abruptly reunited in the airy limbo of a Paris hotel, just south of the Arc de Triomphe.
  • (3) It seemed to me watching the film that the concept of the cloud was another great piece of airy obfuscation on the part of the internet corporations, who like to peddle the childlike and the playful in the way that banks used to flog you credit cards called Smile and Egg and Marbles and Goldfish, to encourage you not to think too hard about the small print (what could possibly go wrong?).
  • (4) The airy, whitewashed restaurant is tasteful, but still a local joint.
  • (5) They ranged from the “hmm” to the blatant to the eye-wateringly awful: ‘Hair twirling’ I recall once the suggestion that I ask a question of another team, in a very airy and innocent manner, hair-twirling and all, to try and get a more favourable answer than previously.
  • (6) Snare describes the portrait quite clearly: the young Charles with his large liquid eyes and pale face, appearing in three-quarter view without rigidity or outline, the painting as airy as mist (and the prince too young for Van Dyck, who only portrayed Charles in his 30s).
  • (7) On the inside it is cream coloured, airy and slightly chewy.
  • (8) Perhaps her airy way of describing this vast archive, withheld in breach of the spirit of the Public Record Act of 1958, had something to do with embarrassment.
  • (9) People around, young people in general can see what engineering is and the fact that it is no longer a mucky, oily, grimy place to work but it is a light, airy, clean environment," he said.
  • (10) However, Miliband's airy rhetoric leaves gaping holes for the Tories to fill with their own version of what a Labour government is about: bankrupting the country, ramping up debt, subsidising dissolute scroungers, opening the borders to mass immigration.
  • (11) Today is busy enough, with herds of small people from a vast range of ethnic backgrounds – the area is one of the most diverse in the country – crowding around the fold-out tables in a bright, airy hall just off the reception area.
  • (12) In an airy white blouse, art gallery owner Dasha Zhukova poses serenely on a chair, in a photograph taken for a Russian fashion website.
  • (13) The second, of course, is the voyeuristic pleasure the camera takes in the delicacies: the shot of a spoon plunging through the soft, airy volume of a chocolate souffle, for example.
  • (14) Punk often sneered at "art" as airy-fairy, bourgeois self-indulgence, but its ranks were full of art-school graduates and this artiness blossomed with the sound, design and stage presentation of bands such as Wire and Talking Heads.
  • (15) No more so than in the airy officers of the consultancy firm Marketing Greece.
  • (16) In his airy new office, Cable says his views have evolved, but refuses to sit in the quirky modern chair shipped in by his predecessor, Lord Mandelson.
  • (17) But she struck me as being very airy-fairy, not the kind of crisp and to-the-point person I was after.
  • (18) And it is this that has brought us here today, to Science, the airy central London headquarters of Hirst's art and business empire.
  • (19) He pauses, looking at the assembled Kurds, Iraqis, Libyans, Bosnians, Serbs, Mexicans, Americans and others in front of him, gathered in the airy auditorium of the Peace Palace in The Hague.
  • (20) Thoughtful speeches on rehabilitating recidivists who wreck communities were reduced to jokes about hugging hoodies, while attempts to debate rising levels of depression, inadequate care and family breakdown were mocked as an Old Etonian's airy-fairy talk of happiness.

Fairy


Definition:

  • (n.) Enchantment; illusion.
  • (n.) The country of the fays; land of illusions.
  • (n.) 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.
  • (n.) An enchantress.
  • (a.) Of or pertaining to fairies.
  • (a.) Given by fairies; as, fairy money.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Mood Indigo (18 July) Arguably the most French movie ever made, Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou are quite adorable as fairy tale lovers in Michel Gondry's adaptation of Boris Vian's Froth on the Daydream.
  • (2) Above all, through the offices of his medium and lover, Mary Parish, he entered into elaborate relations both with the fairy world and with God and His Angels.
  • (3) 2 Attract the Comedian’s attention by having bewildering hair, wearing a necklace of multi-coloured fairy lights and launching two flares up into the lighting rig.
  • (4) The belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a "fairy story" for people afraid of death, Stephen Hawking has said.
  • (5) Firstly, the intervention and example of the archetypal celebrity fairy godmother, Oprah Winfrey.
  • (6) She appeared out of nowhere, said a few words that no one could hear and then slowly made her way through the photographers to a cab and vanished: a great, big, fruitily dressed fairy godmother who, when you come to think of it, bears not the slightest resemblance to any of the other seven billion people on the planet.
  • (7) Star performers: Disney Fairies Tinkerbell soared 25.5% year on year; Disney & Me up 7.5% year on year; Power Rangers up 6.1% year on year; Ben 10 had a debut circulation of 70,012; .
  • (8) A leading member of Voronin's party, Mark Tkachuk, told reporters the claims were "fairy tales" and "low-life gossip".
  • (9) Dadd's three paintings Puck (1841), A Fairy – Sunset (1841-42) and Come unto these Yellow Sands (1842) are elegant and precise – the Puck is a baby, sitting on a mushroom in moonlight under a columbine dripping with dewdrops, among grasses also beaded with water, and watches much smaller naked dancers cavorting below him.
  • (10) My interpretation of the fairy-tale follows this direction.
  • (11) The remark evoked a defensive response from those wedded to the ephemeral virtues of the "confidence fairy" – and who are concerned to keep her benevolent figure hovering above Britain's severely weakened economy.
  • (12) 'The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke,' symbolically re-enacts the murder and makes talion restitution.
  • (13) We suggest that the long process of painting 'The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke' recapitulated and made restitution for the murder, encapsulating it so that compulsive expression of violent ideation was largely reduced, allowing other memories and activities to be engaged and expressed.
  • (14) Both superhero comics and fairy tales are equally popular with children: they create fantasy worlds full of violence and dangers which the hero must overcome.
  • (15) It would swirl around that child's head in the manner of a bad fairy from a storybook bringing along a cursed gift to a christening.
  • (16) This paper will review the meaning, usefulness, and importance of fairy tales by discussing three selections from the psychodynamic and developmental perspectives.
  • (17) These fairies have sharp, mischievous features, quite different from the later fairies of Bethlem.
  • (18) Two maturation fairy-tales with a high resonance effect are analysed.
  • (19) With more than 900 participants from 47 different countries, the festival will showcase new poetry from Simon Armitage and former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, talks from the UK's poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the former US poet laureate Billy Collins, and events from a wide-ranging list of major names including Jung Chang, Margaret Drabble and Richard Dawkins – fresh from inciting controversy for apparently questioning the merits of fairy tales .
  • (20) Thus suitable fairy tale themes can enhance the experiential insight into dreams.