fairing

See also: faring

English

From fair (“community gathering, market”). In the sense of food, because cakes and sweets were sold at fairs.

fairing (plural fairings)

(now archaic) A gift or other souvenir bought at a fair. [from 16th c.]
- 1962, JW Goethe, translated by WH Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, Italian Journey, Penguin, published 1970, page 28:
  She told me she was on her way to the fair in Bolzano and assumed I was going there too. Should we meet there, I must buy her a fairing [translating Jahrmarkt].
(now rare) A present, especially given by a lover. [from 16th c.]
(Scotland, Ireland, now rare) Something that is deserved; one's deserts. [from 18th c.]
A type of small gingerbread biscuit; a ginger nut. [from 19th c.]
- 1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days‎^[1], Part I, Chapter 2:
  […] the ground […] was already being occupied by the “cheap Jacks,” with their green-covered carts and marvellous assortment of wares; and the booths of more legitimate small traders, with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables; and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wild Indians.

From fair (“to smoothen or even a surface”).

fairing

fairing (plural fairings)

A covering on various parts of a vehicle, for example an aircraft, automobile, or motorcycle, that streamlines it (i.e., produces a smooth exterior and reduces drag). [from 20th c.]
- 1950 October, H. C. Casserley, “Locomotive Cavalcade, 1920-1950—4”, in Railway Magazine, page 660:
  The fairing over the driving motion of this engine, and of the 4-6-2s, was removed subsequently, to give greater accessibility to the working parts.

aircraft fairing

“fairing”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Fairing”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume IV (F–G), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 29, column 1.