Research source

Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not historically certain, the word Fairy has…

Date of account: Nineteenth-century comparative survey
Source: The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Reference: The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries · selected passage 11
Rights: public_domain
Language: English with translated traditional material
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not historically certain, the word Fairy has obtained various and opposite etymons

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not historically certain, the word Fairy has obtained various and opposite etymons. Meyric Casaubon, and those who like him deduce everything from a classic source, however unlikely, derive Fairy from Φηρ, a Homeric name of the Centaurs;[6] or think that _fée_, whence Fairy, is the last syllable of _nympha_. Sir W. Ouseley derives it from the Hebrew פאר (_peër_), _to adorn_; Skinner, from the Anglo-Saxon [Old English: faran], _to fare_, _to go_; others from Feres, companions, or think that Fairy-folk is _quasi_ Fair-folk. Finally, it has been queried if it be not Celtic.[7]

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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