green fairy

Calque of French fée verte.

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

green fairy (uncountable)

1. (colloquial) Absinthe liquor.
   • 2010, Paul Owens, Paul Nathan, The Little Green Book of Absinthe‎, Penguin, →ISBN:

     Absinthe ads like to trade on artists like Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec, as if the history of the green fairy began in the Pigalle neighborhood of 1870s Paris, but wormwood-infused drinks have been around for thousands of years.

2. (New Zealand, colloquial) A person who supplies medicinal cannabis products illegally.
   • 2020, James Borrowdale, Weed: A New Zealand Story‎, Penguin Random House New Zealand, →ISBN:

     She used to buy the majority of her medicines from a local green fairy, but when they were busted, her supply line, like that of many other patients, was cut.