Fairest vs Failest - What's the difference?
fairest | failest |
(fair)
Beautiful, of a pleasing appearance, with a pure and fresh quality.
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*{{quote-book, year=1917, year_published=2008
, edition=HTML, author=(Edgar Rice Burroughs), publisher=The Gutenberg Project
, title= *{{quote-book, year=2010, author=(Stephan Grundy)
, title= Unblemished (figuratively or literally); clean and pure; innocent.
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*Book of Common Prayer
*:a fair white linen cloth
Light in color, pale, particularly as regards skin tone but also referring to blond hair.
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*1677 , (Matthew Hale),
*:the northern people large and fair -complexioned
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*:This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking. In complexion fair , and with blue or gray eyes, he was tall as any Viking, as broad in the shoulder.
Just, equitable.
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*:“[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”
Adequate, reasonable, or decent.
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*, chapter=3
, title= Favorable to a ship's course.
Not overcast; cloudless; clear; pleasant; propitious; said of the sky, weather, or wind, etc.
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*(Matthew Prior) (1664-1721)
*:You wish fair winds may waft him over.
Free from obstacles or hindrances; unobstructed; unencumbered; open; direct; said of a road, passage, etc.
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*Sir (Walter Raleigh) (ca.1554-1618)
*:The caliphs obtained a mighty empire, which was in a fair way to have enlarged.
(lb) Without sudden change of direction or curvature; smooth; flowing; said of the figure of a vessel, and of surfaces, water lines, and other lines.
(lb) Between the baselines.
Something which is fair (in various senses of the adjective).
(obsolete) A woman, a member of the ‘fair sex’; also as a collective singular, women.
* 1744 , , act 2, scene 8
* 1749 , Henry Fielding, Tom Jones , Folio Society 1973, p. 39:
* 1819 , Lord Byron, Don Juan , III.24:
(obsolete) Fairness, beauty.
A fair woman; a sweetheart.
* Shenstone
(obsolete) Good fortune; good luck.
* Shakespeare
To smoothen or even a surface (especially a connection or junction on a surface).
To bring into perfect alignment (especially about rivet holes when connecting structural members).
To construct or design a structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline or reduce air drag or water resistance.
(obsolete) To make fair or beautiful.
* Shakespeare
A community gathering to celebrate and exhibit local achievements.
An event for public entertainment and trade, a market.
* , chapter=7
, title= An event for professionals in a trade to learn of new products and do business.
A funfair, an amusement park.
(archaic) (fail)
(label) To be unsuccessful.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (label) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
(label) To neglect.
To cease to operate correctly.
(label) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.
* Bible, 1 Kings ii. 4
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (label) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
(label) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
To miss attaining; to lose.
* Milton
To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
* Bible, Job xiv. 11
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .
* Berke
(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
* Milton
(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
* Milton
To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.
(uncountable) (label) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
(label) A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)
A failure (something incapable of success)
A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
A failing grade in an academic examination.
As an adjective fairest
is superlative of fair.As a verb failest is
archaic second-person singular of fail.fairest
English
Adjective
(head)fair
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) fayr, feir, fager, from (etyl) .Adjective
(er)A Princess of Mars, passage="It was a purely scientific research party sent out by my father's father, the Jeddak of Helium, to rechart the air currents, and to take atmospheric density tests," replied the fair prisoner, in a low, well-modulated voice.}}
Beowulf, genre=Fiction, publisher=iUniverse, isbn=9781440156977, page=33 , passage=And yet he was also, though many generations separated them, distant cousin to the shining eoten-main Geard, whom the god Frea Ing had seen from afar and wedded; and to Scatha, the fair daughter of the old thurse Theasa, who had claimed a husband from among the gods as weregild for her father's slaying: often, it was said, the ugliest eotens would sire the fairest maids.}}
The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, page 200
Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.}}
Synonyms
* (beautiful) beautiful, pretty, lovely * (unblemished) pure, clean, neat * (light in color) pale * (just) honest, just, equitableDerived terms
* all's fair in love and war * fair and square * fair cop * fair copy * fair go * fair play * fair sex * fair to middling * fair use * fair-weather friend * to be fairNoun
(fair)- When will we learn to distinguish between the fair and the foul?
- ''Love and Hymen, hand in hand,
- ''Come, restore the nuptial band!
- ''And sincere delights prepare
- ''To crown the hero and the fair .
- In enjoying, therefore, such place of rendezvous, the British fair ought to esteem themselves more happy than any of their foreign sisters
- If single, probably his plighted Fair / Has in his absence wedded some rich miser [...].
- (Shakespeare)
- I have found out a gift for my fair .
- Now fair befall thee!
Verb
(en verb)- Fairing the foul.
Synonyms
* (to reduce air drag or water resistance) to streamlineDerived terms
* fair off * fair up * fairingDerived terms
* bid fair * fair and squareEtymology 2
From (etyl) feire, from (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened one.}}
Derived terms
* funfairStatistics
* ----failest
English
Verb
(head)fail
English
Verb
(en verb)A new prescription, passage=As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
- There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.
- A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]
citation, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}
- though that seat of earthly bliss be failed
- The crops failed last year.
- as the waters fail from the sea
- Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.
- If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.
- When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .
- A sick man fails .
- had the king in his last sickness failed
- Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb which takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) fall on one's faceAntonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) succeedDerived terms
* failure * fail-safeNoun
- The project was full of fail .