san fairy ann
- idiom
- UK
:
no importa
- When I asked if the delay bothered her, she just said 'san fairy ann.'
Examples
-
If we miss the first train, san fairy ann—there's another in ten minutes.
-
To me, that opinion is just san fairy ann.
-
He lost his pen again, but it was all san fairy ann to him.
-
That's san fairy ann!
-
If we miss the first train, san fairy ann—there's another in ten minutes.
-
He lost his pen again, but it was all san fairy ann to him.
-
When I asked if the delay bothered her, she just said 'san fairy ann.'
Synonyms
20
9.9
Something that has no value or use
1
9.6
A thing that is not important or worth worrying about
A thing that has no value or use
A phrase that says something is not impressive or important
Very unimportant and not worth worrying about
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
san + fairy + ann
The phrase is a colloquial nonsense exclamation (often written as variants like 'san fairy ann') whose individual parts are not standard lexical items or do not contribute a compositional sense; even 'fairy' does not yield the dismissive meaning. The overall dismissive/indifferent sense is idiomatic, dialectal and unpredictable from the constituents, so a B1 learner who knows the words would not reliably infer the meaning.
Etymology
San fairy ann may come from the French words sans, faire, attention, which mean 'without paying attention'. That idea gives a simple picture, doing something 'without care', so people use san fairy ann today to say 'never mind' or 'it does not matter'.