Green’s Dictionary of Slang

insubstantial, trivial, of minimal importance.

1898		Leigh et al. [perf. Alec Hurley] ‘The best little woman in the world’ 🎵 She ain't no airy-fairy, high born lady.
1900		Derry Jrnl 12 Nov. 6/1: ‘Airy-fairy Lillian’ had married Dick Mosty nearly nine years ago. In those days Beratrice had been something of a pickle.
1907		Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 21 July 24/1: And Her Airy-Fairy Name was Maud!
1914		Day Book (Chicago) 20 May 18/2: Airy-Fairy Nunez, full of the joyous hopefulness of youth, only smiled on.
1920		D.H. Lawrence Lost Girl 55: He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the whole affair.
1930		M. Allingham Mystery Mile (1982) 350: Old Airy-fairy Simister, who, as we all know, is anxious to remain a kind of Machiavellian Mrs Harris, has a theory.
1946		Western Morn. News 20 Nov. 6: Teignmouth reconstruction prposals [...] were characterized as ‘airy-fairy and crazy’.
1957		F. Hoyle Black Cloud 85: I am concerned with facts not with motives, suspicions, and airy-fairy nothingness .
1966		Listener 8 Sept. 336/2: Favoured by [...] some men of the market place, whose ideas I believe to be airy-fairy.
1976		C. Dexter Last Seen Wearing in Second Inspector Morse Omnibus (1994) 365: You’re not a very good policeman. You’re too airy-fairy.
1979		New Musical Express 17 Nov. n.p.: Well that’s alright, but it’s too abstract, it’s too ethereal, too airy fairy to connect with me.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 340: It’s not some New Age airy-fairy crap.
2003		G. Tate Midnight Lightning 140: That may be a load of crap, some airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky stuff too.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 128: [H]is twittish scoutmaster tendency. All that airy-fairy, arty-farty, singing-whilst-we-whittle-round-the campfire.