pixie

1. (mythology, fantasy literature, fairy tales) A playful sprite or elflike or fairy-like creature.Examples: "Then she saw pixies — dozens and dozens of pixies — dancing and singing."; "When she looked around, Mary saw four pixies flying toward her. She had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. Then the pixies turned around and attacked again."; "The servant that had raised him, an elderly pixie called Rolog, had died. On his deathbed he had called the young Captain to his side. Seeing the pixie dying had had no effect on him."Synonyms: brownie, fair, gnome, imp, sprite

2. (slang) A cute, petite woman with short hair.Examples: "Then a pixie appears in the visitor window, round face, big brown eyes framed in thick liner, a tiny turned-up nose, red lips, inch-long blue-black hair so popular with the avant-garde."; "Petite and narrow-waisted, with a pixie flip of hair the exact color of coffee beans, Abigail could easily pass for sixteen in a pair of ripped jeans and an Abercrombie T-shirt."; "Petite in the extreme, not even reaching five feet tall, Winchester at her most robust had approached one hundred pounds. No longer the bright-eyed, sophisticated pixie that Isaiah Taber had photographed so many years earlier, Winchester showed a different picture altogether as she lay dying, her fingers and toes knotted and knurled from years of destruction by the painful arthritis."slang

3. (astronomy, meteorology) An upper-atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with thunderstorms, a short-lasting pinpoint of light on the surface of convective domes that produces a gnome.