>>149099670The 'winged flower-fairies' that a lot of people primarily associate with the word have a kinda interesting history.
The roots seem to lie with things like Michael Drayton's Nymphidia and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" making fairies small, harmless and easily mistaken for bugs, even wearing bug clothing.
The first winged fairies arguably show up in Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" in 1712, though the tiny winged beings are called gnomes and sylphs there.
Then some artists would use this portrayal and popularize it until we got Peter Pan and Thumbelina to further cement the image.
The Disney Peter Pan movie probably cemented the image of the tiny winged fairy more than anything else.
Tolkien apparently railed against these creatures.