"fairy dust" meaning in English

See fairy dust in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fairy dust.wav
Etymology: Based on the story of the fictional character Peter Pan, see quotations. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} fairy dust (uncountable)
  1. (fiction) A magical powder that would give the power of flight to whoever it was sprinkled on. Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Fiction, Fantasy, Fictional abilities, Fictional materials Translations (magical powder): keijupöly (Finnish), poussière de fée (French), poudre de fée (French), Feenstaub (German), polvere di fata (Italian), polvo de hadas (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-fairy_dust-en-noun-CyOmUE6R Disambiguation of Fantasy: 41 25 34 Disambiguation of Fictional abilities: 36 22 41 Disambiguation of Fictional materials: 42 26 32 Topics: fiction, literature, media, publishing Disambiguation of 'magical powder': 75 24 1
  2. (by extension) Any apparently magical ingredient or effect; a panacea. Tags: broadly, uncountable Categories (topical): Fantasy, Fictional abilities Translations (any apparently magical ingredient or effect): keijupöly (Finnish), poudre de perlimpinpin [feminine] (French)
    Sense id: en-fairy_dust-en-noun-6VwuKf2U Disambiguation of Fantasy: 41 25 34 Disambiguation of Fictional abilities: 36 22 41 Disambiguation of 'any apparently magical ingredient or effect': 8 89 3
  3. (slang) The drug phencyclidine. Tags: slang, uncountable Categories (topical): Anti-gravity, Fantasy, Fictional abilities, Recreational drugs Synonyms: angel dust Related terms: pixie dust
    Sense id: en-fairy_dust-en-noun-pP71OGrc Disambiguation of Anti-gravity: 28 17 55 Disambiguation of Fantasy: 41 25 34 Disambiguation of Fictional abilities: 36 22 41 Disambiguation of Recreational drugs: 12 21 67 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Italian translations, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 20 26 54 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 14 13 74 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 23 14 64 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 18 24 58 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 15 18 67 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 16 19 65 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 15 18 67 Disambiguation of Terms with Italian translations: 14 18 67 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 20 14 66
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "ref": "1911, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “Come away, Come away!”, in Peter and Wendy, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 54:",
          "text": "Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him.",
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        "(fiction) A magical powder that would give the power of flight to whoever it was sprinkled on."
      ],
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          "_dis1": "75 24 1",
          "code": "fi",
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          "sense": "magical powder",
          "word": "keijupöly"
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        {
          "_dis1": "75 24 1",
          "code": "fr",
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          "sense": "magical powder",
          "word": "poussière de fée"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "75 24 1",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "magical powder",
          "word": "poudre de fée"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "75 24 1",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "magical powder",
          "word": "Feenstaub"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "75 24 1",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "magical powder",
          "word": "polvere di fata"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "75 24 1",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "magical powder",
          "word": "polvo de hadas"
        }
      ]
    },
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          "text": "It's not that some magic private sector fairy dust makes the firms all be runs^([sic]) soundly. Lots of bad businesses are out there. But they tend to lose money and close.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "Any apparently magical ingredient or effect; a panacea."
      ],
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        "(by extension) Any apparently magical ingredient or effect; a panacea."
      ],
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          "_dis1": "8 89 3",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "any apparently magical ingredient or effect",
          "word": "keijupöly"
        },
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          "_dis1": "8 89 3",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "any apparently magical ingredient or effect",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "poudre de perlimpinpin"
        }
      ]
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          "kind": "other",
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            "Genres",
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            "Astronomy",
            "Applied sciences",
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            "Culture",
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          "_dis": "41 25 34",
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          "name": "Fantasy",
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          ],
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          "ref": "2001, Simon Logan, I-O, Prime, →ISBN, page 102:",
          "text": "This led to a certain amount of complacency on my part and certainly the fairy dust and mescaline cocktails I took day and night could only have contributed to my uncommonly satiated drive for a good fuck.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The drug phencyclidine."
      ],
      "id": "en-fairy_dust-en-noun-pP71OGrc",
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        [
          "phencyclidine",
          "phencyclidine"
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        "(slang) The drug phencyclidine."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "0 0 100",
          "word": "pixie dust"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "angel dust"
        }
      ],
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        "(by extension) Any apparently magical ingredient or effect; a panacea."
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        "(slang) The drug phencyclidine."
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "magical powder",
      "word": "keijupöly"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "magical powder",
      "word": "poussière de fée"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "magical powder",
      "word": "poudre de fée"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "magical powder",
      "word": "Feenstaub"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "magical powder",
      "word": "polvere di fata"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "magical powder",
      "word": "polvo de hadas"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "any apparently magical ingredient or effect",
      "word": "keijupöly"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "any apparently magical ingredient or effect",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "poudre de perlimpinpin"
    }
  ],
  "word": "fairy dust"
}

Download raw JSONL data for fairy dust meaning in English (4.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (f2d86ce and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.