Definition of "peri"

He sent a Peri to Chundum Dew with a message: "If you wish to live, release the mortal in your power: if not, every demon in your service will immediately be put to the sword."

January-June 1829, “The Adventures of Hatim-Beni-Tye”, in The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies‎, volume 27, page 549

In an hour they hovered above Hampstead Heath, and the peri looked down for a lonely spot where she might alight in the sulphurous gloom of a dog-day sunset too blinding for anyone to look at […]

March 16 1916, Alfred Richard Orage, Arthur Moore, The New Age: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature and Art, page 473

The Padishah's son was also there, and he realized that the peri looked very familiar.

2008, A Fire in My Heart: Kurdish Tales, page 75