fairish

1. not comparableOf moderate quality, size, etc.

   "I did pretty fairish," replied Benjamin, modestly

   1872, Edward Peacock, Mabel Heron, page 220

   5 more examples

   Andrew pays all the farm expenses, but the housekeeping accounts fall to me. I make a fairish amount of pin money on my poultry and some of my preserves that I send to Boston, […]

   1917, Christopher Morley, chapter 3, in Parnassus on Wheels, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC, page 26

   Then I went and fetched him; though I had the deuce of a bother making the coppers believe that he was my brother—you see he was in a fairish mess, but he did look like a gentleman, which is more than I do nowadays.

   1915, Elinor Mordaunt, The Family, page 308

   'It seems you'll find a fairish mess out in Austria,' said Basil.

   1921, David Herbert Lawrence, The Ladybird

   At the same time, I have tried to stand back and describe objectively why and how, in the then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurds words, it turned out to be a "fairish nightmare"—a nightmare for which most principals involved, including myself, bear some responsibility.

   2013, Tim Lankester, The Politics and Economics of Britain's Foreign Aid, page 139

   Lord bless you, I know all the breeders about here; they are not a bad set, and they breed a very fairish set of horses, but they are not like what their fathers were, nor are their horses like their fathers' horses.

   2019, George Borrow, Theodore Watts-Dunton, The Romany Rye

2. not comparableIn reasonable health and spirits, but not great.

   While feeling "fairish," she had lost her appetite again; was being fed liver extract.

   1935, Journal of the Outdoor Life - Volume 32, page 11

   2 more examples

   Lord Loam (To Tompsett, as they partake of tea together): And how are all at home? Tompsett: Fairish, my lord,

   1902, James M. Barrie, The Admirable Crichton

   " How are you, Mudge – all right?" "Fairish much obliged to you for lugging me home. My man told me."

   1911, Marjorie Benton Cooke, Dr. David, page 33

3. not comparableOf reasonable fairness; even-handed or equitable, but probably not as good as one wants.

   'It's a. fairish price, ' he said grudgingly.

   2015, Robert Fabbri, Rome's Lost Son

   2 more examples

   This was a. fairish judgement, he thought, if hard.·

   1977, Stanley Middleton, Ends and Means, page 224

   I had a fairish contract, and though the mail was a heavy one, I was able to manage it by riding one horse and leading a packer.

   2022, Rolf Boldrewood, In Bad Company, and other stories

4. not comparableMostly mild and clement.

   Fairish all day but clouded all over at 6 p.m.

   1909 July 1, “The Weather”, in Journal of Agriculture and Horticulture, volume 13, number 1, page 45

   3 more examples

   "Well, well," he went on slowly, "a fairish day–a bit frost coming. Nelse says there'll be snow up the Lake diveesion, late as it is."

   1910, Charles Tenney Jackson, My Brother's Keeper, page 273

   Morn fairish, after cloudy and rainy appearance .

   1972, Samuel Curwen, Andrew Oliver, The Journal of Samuel Curwen, Loyalist, page 833

   Weather forecasts were good again and the chances of arriving at Maddon's Rock in fairish weather looked reasonably bright .

   2013, Hammond Innes, Maddon's Rock

5. not comparableSomewhat fair or light-colored.

   Of middling height, with fairish skin and raven dark curls peeking from beneath a stylish bonnet.

   2004, Leslie Lafoy, The Perfect Temptation

   2 more examples

   Suetonius describes Augustus with leviter inflexum et subflavum 'wavy and fairish' hair (Divus Augustus 79), which, coupled with his bright eyes and medium complexion , perhaps awards him the bravery of a lion (Evans 1935: 65–6; 1969:53-4; Gascou 1984:603).

   2001, John V. Day, Indo-European Origins: The Anthropological Evidence, page 124

   One, I'm pretty sure, is Edward Monkford. The same fairish curls framing a lean, ascetic face as in a photo I found on the internet; the same black cashmere pullover and white open-necked shirt.

   2017, JP Delaney, The Girl Before

plural fairishes

1. dialectalA fairy.

   Years back, the housekeeper says, her mother encounted the "last fairish" that ever was seen in the hollow.

   2009, Anita Rose, Gender and Victorian Reform, page 211

   5 more examples

   Next day, Kathy took the potato her mother gave her, and gnawing it all to the heart, she set out upon her search for the fairish, munching at the half-raw core as she went her way. She found the fairish waiting by the bog, with her lap full of berries, and some mealy roots, like sweet, boiled radishes.

   1855, Harriet Farley, Happy Hours at Hazel Nook, Or, Cottage Stories, page 220

   ' Fairishes! Oh Lard!' she vociferated. 'Fairishes! Don't look at dem, your honour - oh, don't! As sure as you live you'll break your leg inside of a week if you looks dat em.'

   1887, May Laffan, Ismay's Children, page 328

   In this tongue she sang the children ballads and told them tales of the 'fairish' (fairies) which lived in the Bottom before machinery drove them away, stories of the graves under the rectory back-kitchen, 'of witches running red-hot needles into human flesh.'

   1928, Romer Wilson, All Alone: The Life and Private History of Emily Jane Brontë, page 65

   This tale opens in "that part of merry England called Derbyshire" (3); when the foundling character, Sydney, is introduced in a British garden, he is immediately associated with fairies or the "fairish” (4).

   2016, Abigail Heiniger, Jane Eyre's Fairytale Legacy at Home and Abroad, page 38

   In the glory days of the royal fairish clan, members of the royal fairish family were given the special task of travelling to Felanthiam and caring for their mother star.

   2018, Tephra Miriam, Escape to Clown Town, page 31