Definition of "fairy"

"They used to say there were fairies in that hill, I must tell you!"

1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 51

"When are we going to see this fairy?" demanded Algy. "You, personally, never. You're far too immoral. I might let the others look at her from a distance in a year or two."

1920, H. C. McNeile "Snapper", 'Bulldog Drummond'‎

As she took out her key she was quite unaware that three pairs of eyes were watching her with interest from across the street. [...] ‘Strewth–’e ain’t ‘arf got a fairy this time,’ remarked the husky Mr. Clegg.

1942, Dennis Wheatley, 'Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts'‎

The cripple returned the smile and stuck out his hand. Miss Lonelyhearts clasped it, and they stood this way, smiling and holding hands, until Mrs. Doyle reëntered the room. "What a sweet pair of fairies you guys are," she said. The cripple pulled his hand away and made as though to strike his wife.

1933, Nathanael West, 'Miss Lonelyhearts' : [Miss Lonelyhearts is male.]

We saw a horrible sight in the bar: a white hipster fairy had come in wearing a Hawaiian shirt and was asking the big drummer if he could sit in.

1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 4, in On the Road, Viking Press, part 3

Wimpy names—e.g., Cecil, Clarence, and Wendell—also seem to carry homosexual overtones, because we all know that fairies are meek and wimpy, just as we know that all wimps are ‘fags’ in one sense or the other.

1989, Marshall Kirk, Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s, Doubleday Books, page 20

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], page 287