fairmaid

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A mermaid from a blackwater creek or river.

   • I go down to the punt-trench and I beg the water people. Help me, I say. I throw eggs — fresh eggs — in the black water. It was to feed the fairmaids.
   • The only trouble was that he had to pass a koker, and people said that at night when everyone was asleep and the moon had gone in, the fairmaids came out to sit on the koker to comb their long hair.
2. 2

   Synonym of snowdrop.

   • Fairmaid is a soft pink flower, very pleasing.
   • ...fairmaids of February, white ladies and Candlemas bells, which surely deserved a hearing.
   • These February fairmaids, closely linked with ancient church traditions, still grow naturally in profusion at many monastic sites.
3. 3

   A smoked or salted pilchard.

   • Now the salted pilchards, known as fairmaids, were washed in a kieve, or huge wooden tray having a grating in the bottom through which the fish scales could drop.

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