Word.ws English Dictionary

san fairy ann

Syllables: san fai·ry annUK/sæn ˈfɛːɹi æn/

san fairy ann phrase: it doesn't matter.

Phrase

san fairy ann

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, humorous, obsolete, slang) It doesn't matter.
    • “[…] It seems scrounging for fuel ’ad reached such a pitch in the village […] But our washing ’ad to be done, ’an I thought if I got the whole of this football team scrounging they might find something as everyone else ’ad overlooked.[…]” / “‘Very well,’ says I, ‘San fairy ann. Napoo [i.e., n’y a...1920 March 10, “Won on the Posts. (With the British Army in France.)”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume CLVIII, London: […] Bradbury, Agnew & Co., […], →OCLC, page 185, column 1
    • We said he were wonderful brave dog about Upstart, which me and Slippers would not have taken on. He said: "Fairy Ann! Fairy Ann!" But he were most-happy dog.[1930 October, Rudyard Kipling, “Toby Dog”, in Thy Servant a Dog […], London: Macmillan and Co., […], published October 1931, →OCLC, pages 87–88
    Synonyms:
    fairy ann

Synonyms of san fairy ann

  • fairy ann

Origin of san fairy ann

A homophonic translation of French ça ne fait rien (“it doesn’t matter”), probably originating among British and ANZAC army soldiers during World War I (1914–1918).

Questions about san fairy ann

What does san fairy ann mean?
San fairy ann means it doesn't matter.
What part of speech is san fairy ann?
San fairy ann is a phrase.
How do you pronounce san fairy ann?
San fairy ann is pronounced /sæn ˈfɛːɹi æn/ (UK).

Words near san fairy ann in the dictionary

  1. San Esteban Catarina
  2. San Esteban de Pravia
  3. San Fabian
  4. San Fagciscan
  5. San Fagcisco
  6. san fairy ann
  7. San Felipe
  8. San Felipe de Aconcagua
  9. San Fernando
  10. San Fernando de Henares
  11. San Fernando Norte

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: san fairy ann (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-san fairy ann.oga.

Cite this entry: “san fairy ann.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/san_fairy_ann. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.