fairy lights

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fairy lights pl (normally plural, singular fairy light)

1. (UK) Small electric lights on a strand which are used decoratively, especially on Christmas trees.
   • 1930, Sax Rohmer, The Day the World Ended, published 1969, page i. 13:

     Through the trees ahead came odd strains from the dance band in the Casino, and now I could see many twinkling fairy lights and detect moving figures.

   • 2010, Trisha Ashley, Twelve Days of Christmas‎, HarperCollins, →ISBN:

     I managed to put quite a lot of small baubles on the top of the tree that way and helped drape the long string of fairy lights around it, […]

   • 2023 September 23, Tim Hayward, “Not so easy does it”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 19:

     A constant, slightly defocused, dinner party with relaxed glamorous friends, carrying on just outside the kitchen door, under the fairy lights.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:fairy lights.

• Christmas lights