sugar-plum fairy
1
9.2
- noun
- /ˈsʌɡər plʌm ˈfɛri/
- Archaic
:
hada de los caramelos
- He danced around the room like a sugar-plum fairy, spreading cheer and whimsy to everyone.
Examples
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In her stories, the sugar-plum fairy always brought magical gifts to children at midnight.
-
There are no General Patton types in their ranks, only sugar plum fairies.
Blog text (5) -
The children's party was filled with laughter, as the sugar-plum fairy sprinkled joy everywhere.
Synonyms
417
2.7
A small imagined being that looks like a person and has magic
How Whimsical
Surface Forms
Morphology
sugar-plum + fairy
Although 'fairy' is literal and the elements 'sugar' + 'plum' connote sweetness/delicacy, the compound 'sugar-plum' is not a productive, clearly defined adjective and the full figurative sense ('a whimsical, fanciful person' or a specific Nutcracker character) depends on cultural knowledge. A B1 learner who knows the constituents might partially infer a delicate or sweet fairy but would not reliably predict the precise idiomatic or cultural meaning, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Sugar-plum fairy mixes sweet sugar-plum, an old kind of candy, and a small magical fairy from stories and the ballet 'The Nutcracker'. This picture of a tiny, sweet, dancing creature is why the phrase means 'a whimsical, playful, or dreamy person'.