| English Dictionary |
AIRY (airier, airiest)
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
| IPA (US): |  |
, airiest Dictionary entry overview: What does airy mean?
• AIRY (adjective)
The adjective AIRY has 4 senses:
1. open to or abounding in fresh air
2. not practical or realizable; speculative
3. having little or no perceptible weight; so light as to resemble air
4. characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air
Familiarity information: AIRY used as an adjective is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
| Declension: comparative and superlative |
Superlative: airiest
Sense 1
Meaning:
Open to or abounding in fresh air
Synonyms:
aired; airy
Context example:
airy rooms
Similar:
ventilated (exposed to air)
Derivation:
air (a slight wind (usually refreshing))
airiness (the property of something spacious and abounding in fresh air)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not practical or realizable; speculative
Synonyms:
airy; impractical; Laputan; visionary; windy
Context example:
visionary schemes for getting rich
Similar:
utopian (characterized by or aspiring to impracticable perfection)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Having little or no perceptible weight; so light as to resemble air
Context example:
airy gauze curtains
Similar:
light (of comparatively little physical weight or density)
Derivation:
airiness (the property of something weightless and insubstantial)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air
Synonyms:
aerial; aeriform; aery; airy; ethereal
Context example:
physical rather than ethereal forms
Similar:
insubstantial; unreal; unsubstantial (lacking material form or substance; unreal)
Derivation:
airiness (the property of something weightless and insubstantial)
Context examples
I confess to you, my friend, that I love you and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my constant friend and companion.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
As I went up to my airy old room, the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past more indistinct.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
It was a bit of society verse, airy and delicate, which he had named "The Palmist."
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to the deck.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
“It is not an airy nothing, you see,” said he, smiling.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It made her melancholy again; and the knowledge of what must be enduring there, invested even the house, modern, airy, and well situated as it was, with a melancholy aspect.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Gold and purple clouds lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery white peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It was a large, airy place, with a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury, would be his constant attraction.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The sum of his discourse was to this effect: That about forty years ago, certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came back with a very little smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in that airy region: that these persons, upon their return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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