fairish

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of moderate quality, size, etc.

   “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, […]”

   “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.”

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

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. (not-comparable)In reasonable health and spirits, but not great.

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

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

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

3. (not-comparable)Of reasonable fairness; even-handed or equitable, but probably not as good as one wants.

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

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

   “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.”

4. (not-comparable)Mostly mild and clement.

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

   “"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."”

   “Morn fairish, after cloudy and rainy appearance .”

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

5. (not-comparable)Somewhat fair or light-colored.

   “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).”

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

   “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.”

noun

1. (dialectal)A fairy.

   “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.”

   “' 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.'”

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

   “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.'”

   “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).”