English · Idiom Historical

fairy of the mine

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

A malevolent gnome (#.v.) supposed to live in mines, busying itself with cutting ore, turning the windlass, etc., but effecting nothing.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

một loại gnome ác tính sống trong mỏ

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “fairy of the mine” mean?

A malevolent gnome (#.v.) supposed to live in mines, busying itself with cutting ore, turning the windlass, etc., but effecting nothing.

Is “fairy of the mine” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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