Green’s Dictionary of Slang

effeminate, homosexual.

1925		R. McAlmon Distinguished Air (1963) 19: He [...] began soon to relate a variety of fairy stories which he had heard while in the army.
1931–4		J.T. Farrell ‘Just Boys’ in Short Stories (1937) 98: Just a nigger fairy party, and one of the shines slashed a white pansy’s throat.
1936		W.J. Blackledge Legion of Marching Madmen 167: ‘[D]on’t shave from now on, kid. As a prisoner with the Turks that fairy dial of yours would damn you from the word “go!”’.
1942		H. Miller Roofs of Paris (1983) 284: That fairy brother of Tania’s.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 371: Montclair is a punk! Montclair Boles is my fairy sister!
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 138: ‘Them fairy fags,’ sneered Hook.
1971		F. Hilaire Thanatos 182: Oh, you fairy bastard!
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 19: I call dancing fairy sports.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 118: ‘Let’s have it in one of those fairy glasses [i.e. a Melbourne middy not a Sydney schooner], then’.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 71: Lots of little fairy boys like you back home then, Pat?
2005		H. Mantel Beyond Black 164: Anybody showing his legs like that ’as got to be of the fairy persuasion.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 500: Mister Parlay Vous is he? Was he? Never trust a fairy name changer.