fair
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
adv
Morphological type: simple
Topics: art
arts
ball-games
baseball
business
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
manufacturing
mathematics
nautical
rugby
sciences
shipbuilding
sports
statistics
transport
Etymology: From Middle English fayr, feir, fager, from Old English fæġer (“beautiful”), from Proto-West Germanic *fagr, from Proto-Germanic *fagraz (“suitable, fitting, nice”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ḱ- (“to fasten, place”).
Cognate with Scots fayr, fare (“fair”), Danish feir, faver, fager (“fair, pretty”), Norwegian fager (“fair, pretty”), Swedish fager (“fair, pretty”), Icelandic fagur (“beautiful, fair”), Umbrian pacer (“gracious, merciful, kind”), Slovak pekný (“good-looking, handsome, nice”). See also peace.
Inflected forms:
form: fairer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: fairest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: fair
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: fairs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: fairing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: faired
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: faired
pos: verb
tags: past
form: more fair
pos: adv
tags: comparative
form: fairer
pos: adv
tags: comparative
form: most fair
pos: adv
tags: superlative
form: fairest
pos: adv
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Beautiful, of a pleasing appearance, with a pure and fresh quality.
pos: adj
tags: archaic
literary
examples: Monday's child is fair of face.
There was once a knight who wooed a fair young maid.
He is so fayre, withoutten les, / he semys full well to sytt on des.
That the ſonnes of God ſaw the daughters of men, that they were faire, and they took them wiues, of all which they choſe.
"It was a purely scientific research party sent out by my father's father, the Jeddak of Helium, to rechart the air currents, and to take atmospheric density tests," replied the fair prisoner, in a low, well-modulated voice.
And yet he was also, though many generations separated them, distant cousin to the shining eoten-main Geard, whom the god Frea Ing had seen from afar and wedded; and to Scatha, the fair daughter of the old thurse Theasa, who had claimed a husband from among the gods as weregild for her father's slaying: often, it was said, the ugliest eotens would sire the fairest maids.
gloss: Unblemished (figuratively or literally); clean and pure; innocent.
pos: adj
examples: one's fair name
After scratching out and replacing various words in the manuscript, he scribed a fair copy to send to the publisher.
The Table hauing at the Communion time a faire white linnen cloth vpon it, shall stand in the body of the Church, or in the Chancell, where Morning prayer and Euening prayer be appointed to be said.
1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, London, Observation 21, “Of Moss, and several other small vegetative Substances,” p. 135,
[…] I have observ’d, that putting fair Water (whether Rain-water or Pump-water, or May-dew, or Snow-water, it was almost all one) I have often observ’d, I say, that this Water would, with a little standing, tarnish and cover all about the sides of the Glass that lay under water, with a lovely green […]
gloss: Light in color, pale, particularly with regard to skin tone but also referring to blond and red hair.
pos: adj
examples: She had fair hair and blue eyes.
the northern people large and fair-complexioned
This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking. In complexion fair, and with blue or gray eyes, he was tall as any Viking, as broad in the shoulder.
gloss: Just.
pos: adj
examples: He must be given a fair trial.
“[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”
gloss: Adequate, reasonable, or decent, but not excellent.
pos: adj
examples: Their performance has been only fair.
The patient was in a fair condition after some treatment.
My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.
The words of these songs were either without meaning, or derived from an idiom with which Watt, a very fair linguist, had no acquaintance.
gloss: Favorable to a ship's course.
pos: adj
examples: I shipped with them and becoming friends, we set forth on our venture, in health and safety; and sailed with a fair wind, till we came to a city called Madínat-al-Sín; […]
gloss: Favorable, pleasant.
pos: adj
examples: The weather was fair today.
gloss: Favorable, pleasant.
pos: adj
examples: a fair sky
They had good weather and tolerably fair winds, and before they entered the Straits of Magellan the captain had formulated a plan for the disposition of Garta.
gloss: Favorable, pleasant.
pos: adj
examples: a fair mark;  in fair sight;  a fair view
The caliphs obtained a mighty empire, which was in a fair way to have enlarged.
gloss: Without sudden change of direction or curvature; smooth; flowing; said of the figure of a vessel, and of surfaces, water lines, and other lines.
pos: adj
gloss: Between the baselines.
pos: adj
gloss: Taken direct from an opponent's foot, without the ball touching the ground or another player.
pos: adj
gloss: Not a no ball.
pos: adj
gloss: Of a coin or die, having equal chance of landing on any side, unbiased.
pos: adj
examples: A fair coin has a 50% chance of landing on heads.
gloss: Something which is fair (in various senses of the adjective).
pos: noun
examples: When will we learn to distinguish between the fair and the foul?
gloss: A woman, a member of the ‘fair sex’; also as a collective singular, women.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Love and Hymen, hand in hand,
Come, restore the nuptial band!
And sincere delights prepare
To crown the hero and the fair.
Here Jones, having ordered a servant to show a room above stairs, was ascending, when the dishevelled fair, hastily following, was laid hold on by the master of the house, who cried, “Heyday, where is that beggar wench going? Stay below stairs, I desire you.”
If single, probably his plighted Fair
Has in his absence wedded some rich miser […].
gloss: Fairness, beauty.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: My decayed fair
gloss: A fair woman; a sweetheart.
pos: noun
examples: I have found out a gift for my fair.
gloss: Good fortune; good luck.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Now, fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
gloss: To smoothen or even a surface (especially a connection or junction on a surface).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To bring into perfect alignment (especially about rivet holes when connecting structural members).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To make an animation smooth, removing any jerkiness.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Since the sequence of data contain sampling noises, the captured motion is not smooth and wiggles along the moving path. There are well-known fairing algorithms in Euclidean space based on difference geometry.
gloss: To construct or design with the aim of producing a smooth outline or reducing air drag or water resistance.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Two forward cars were provided with the model. One of these (shown detached in Fig. 1) was faired at its after end, with a view to possible reduction of head resistance, and to induce a better flow of air to the propeller.
gloss: To make fair or beautiful.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: Fairing the foul with art’s false borrow’d face
gloss: To become fair (favorable, not stormy).
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: [The] weather faired, and toward midday we were again facing the fringe of breakers from the cliffs.
... weather "faired off" next morning, and we were not a bit sorry to mark time for a couple of days while the water went down.
... weather faired up but there was no thought of delay; it was time for Texas to move forward and form a new, independent government. In an effort to combat the frigid conditions, the delegates nailed thin pieces of cloth over the[…]
gloss: Clearly, openly, frankly, civilly, honestly, favorably, auspiciously, agreeably.
pos: adv
gloss: Almost; to a great extent but not literally.
pos: adv
tags: Ireland
examples: "I'm fair moidered to know what to do wid him," she confessed to the rosy-cheeked Bridget one day.
"I just want to get me blasted boots off and soak me poor feet, they're fair killing me, what with chilblains and corns, me toes are fair screaming."
"We were at Egyptian Hall last night and the poor lady was overwhelmed with messages - they fair exhausted her."
Derived words: a fair bit
a fair booty makes many a thief
a fair few
all's fair in love and war
by fair means or foul
culture-fair
everything is fair in love and war
faint heart never won fair lady
fair as the day
fair ball
Fairbank
Fairbanks
fair bet
fair-built
fair cake-cutting
fair catch
fair coin
fair comment
fair cop
fair copy
fair crack of the whip
fair dealing
fair dinks
fair dinkum
fair division
fair doos
fair do's
fair dos
fair enough
fair exchange is no robbery
fair fucks
fair game
fair go
fair-haired
fairhanded
Fairhaven
Fairhead
Fair Head
fairheaded
fair-headed
fairhood
fair is fair
fairish
Fair Isle
Fair Lawn
fairlead
fairleader
fair leather
fair linen
fair list
fairmaid
fair-maid-of-France
fair maids of France
fair-mannered
fair market value
fair-minded
fairness
Fair Oaks
fair penny
fair play
fair sex
fair's fair
fair shake
fair shake of the sauce bottle
fair share
fair-sized
fair-skinned
fairsome
fair-spoken
fair suck of the pineapple
fair suck of the sauce bottle
fair suck of the sauce stick
fair suck of the sav
fair to meddling
fair-to-middlin'
fair to middlin'
fair-to-middling
fair to middling
fair trade
fair trial
fair use
fair value
fair warning
fairwater
fairway
fair-weather
fair weather fan
fair-weather friend
fair weather friend
fair-weather friendship
fair wind
fancy fair
hyperfair
in a fair way
make fair weather
money and fair words
no fair
North Fair Oaks
play fair
set-fair
set fair
snout-fair
superfair
to be fair
turnabout is fair play
turn about is fair play
you can't say fairer than that
fair and square
fair off
fair up
fairing
bid fair
Translations: