[f. as prec. + -ISM.] a. The personal qualities of a fairy; fairy power. Hence transf. the power (of a poet) to cast a spell over a hearer or reader. b. The conditions of fairy existence; a resemblance to those conditions; fairyland. c. Belief in fairies, fairy-lore.
1715. trans. D’Anois’ Wks., 373. The Gift of Faryism, which I receiv’d from my Birth.
1763. H. Walpole, Let. G. Montagu, 17 May. The air of enchantment and fairyism, which is the tone of the place.
1796. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., XXI. 491. The miracles of fairyism. Ibid. (1803), in Ann. Rev., I. 265/1. ‘Arthur,’ said King Oberon, ‘I pardon you on your sister’s account, else I would have shown you the great power of my fairyism.’
1835. Sir E. Brydges, Milton’s Comus, 182. Thomson … has not the distinctness and fairyism of Milton.
1843. Blackw. Mag., LIV. July, 26. What Rousseau, when speaking of the operas of that period, terms ‘a false air of magnificence, fairyism, and enchantment, which, like flowers in a field before the harvest, betokens an apparent richness.’
1877. Ouida, Puck, xxiii. 273. In all her … winged fairyism.
