fairyland

plural fairylands · alternative fairy land · alternative fairy-land

1. countableuncountableThe land or abode of fairies.

   Disconsolately they shot the water-chute, swung on the swings, ate fairy floss from the booth like nostalgic exiles from fairyland.

   1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 74

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   These fairy-lands are only seen by very pious people or by those who are gifted with second sight, when in danger of their lives at sea, and they appear where at other times no land is to be found.

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 46

   Not merely a foolish fairyland of make-believe and dragons and princesses imprisoned in animals, but a fairyland the whole world needs - the sympathy of sweet endeavour, love, gentleness and sacrifice for others.

   2004, Algernon Blackwood, A Prisoner in Fairyland, Kessinger Publishing, page 174

2. countableuncountableAny place of great natural beauty, or having a magical atmosphere.

   After months of darkness, mud and shuttered shops, what a delight to see gay streets filled with stores, all gorgeous in a Christmas fairyland of decoration.

   2005, A War Nurse's Diary: Sketches from a Belgian Field Hospital, page 63

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   No one who had not observed that for a short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland beyond. For a fairyland it was - the most wonderful that the imagination of man could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above filtered and tempered in its fall.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

3. countableuncountableSynonym of dreamland (“ideal but unrealistic fantasy world”).

   Synonyms: dreamland

alternative fairy land · alternative fairy-land

1. not comparableHaving qualities ascribed to fairies and their realm; fanciful, delicate, surreal, or diminutive.

   The children built a fairyland cottage out of gingerbread, decorated with gumdrops and peppermint sticks.