Etymology From fair (“community gathering, market”). In the sense of food, because cakes and sweets were sold at fairs.
1
Archaic A gift or other souvenir bought at a fair.
She told me she was on her way to the fair in Bolzano and assumed I was going there too. Should we meet there, I must buy her a fairing [translating Jahrmarkt].1962, JW Goethe, translated by WH Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, Italian Journey, Penguin, published 1970, page 28:
A type of small gingerbread biscuit; a ginger nut.
[…] the ground […] was already being occupied by the “cheap Jacks,” with their green-covered carts and marvellous assortment of wares; and the booths of more legitimate small traders, with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables; and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wild Indians.1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days, Part I, Chapter 2:
Etymology From fair (“to smoothen or even a surface”).
1
A covering on various parts of a vehicle, for example an aircraft, automobile, or motorcycle, that streamlines it (i.e., produces a smooth exterior and reduces drag).
The fairing over the driving motion of this engine, and of the 4-6-2s, was removed subsequently, to give greater accessibility to the working parts.1950 October, H. C. Casserley, “Locomotive Cavalcade, 1920-1950—4”, in Railway Magazine, page 660:
To improve the appearance of the stepped roof a glass-fibre fairing, moulded to the corner radius, extends for the full length between the two cabs.1960 February 23, “High-Voltage Electric Locomotive for British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 123: