1. = FUMADE.
1848. C. A. Johns, Week at Lizard, 54. The Italians call them [salted pilchards] fumados, under the impression that they have been smoked previously to being stored away; from a corruption of this word they are universally called, in Cornwall, ‘fair-maids,’ an appellation than which a less appropriate one can scarcely be conceived.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 128. Quarter Hogsheads of Fairmaids.
2. In various names of plants. Fair maid(s of February, the Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis; Fair maids of France, of Kent [= Fr. belle-pucelle], a double-flowered variety of Crowfoot, Ranunculus aconitiflorus.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), II. 331. Common Snowdrop. Fair Maids of February.
1823. Crabb, Technol. Dict., s.v. Fair Maid of France (Bot.) the Ranunculus aconitifolius of Linnæus, a perennial.
1863. Prior, Plant-n., Fair Maids of February, white flowers that blossom about the 2nd of that month. Ibid., Fair Maids of France.
1878–86. Britten & Holland, Plant-n., Fair Maids of Kent.
