Accusations have flown that Corbett played politics with the case of the predatory animal.
Realising the end was near, he asked to be flown back to England.
I wondered how many injured it had flown to Germany and how many fallen it had carried back to the U.S.
Alaskans in these rural communities can order alcohol to be flown in from Anchorage, but it is not sold locally.
Given those, it would be a virtually routine calculation to determine how far it had flown before crashing.
The blood had flown violently to his neck, which was burning him.
The season for action then had arrived; the night had flown as a hideous dream.
Of course, the kite is flown other side up, with the bridle underneath.
He'd flown before, on the commercial lines, but he'd never been in a glider.
He had created a bird with a little clay on which he breathed the breath of life, and the bird had then flown away.
past participle of fly (v.).
slang, "clever, alert, wide awake," late 18c., perhaps from fly (n.) on the notion of the insect being hard to catch. Other theories, however, trace it to fledge or flash. Slang use in 1990s might be a revival or a reinvention.
Old English fleoge "fly, winged insect," from Proto-Germanic *fleugjon (cf. Old Saxon fleiga, Old Norse fluga, Middle Dutch vlieghe, Dutch vlieg, Old High German flioga, German Fliege "fly); literally "the flying (insect)" (cf. Old English fleogende "flying"), from same source as fly (v.1).
Originally any winged insect (hence butterfly, etc.); long used by farmers and gardeners for any insect parasite. The Old English plural in -n (cf. oxen) gradually normalized 13c.-15c. to -s. Fly on the wall "unseen observer" first recorded 1881. An Old English word for "curtain" was fleonet "fly-net." Fly-swatter first attested 1917. Fly-fishing is from 1650s.
"to soar through air," Old English fleogan "to fly" (class II strong verb; past tense fleag, past participle flogen), from West Germanic *fleuganan (cf. Old Saxon and Old High German fliogan, Old Norse flügja, Old Frisian fliaga, Middle Dutch vlieghen, Dutch vliegen, German fliegen), from PIE *pleu- "flowing, floating" (see pluvial).
Notion of "flapping as a wing does" led to noun sense of "tent flap" (1810), which yielded (1844) "covering for buttons that close up a garment." The noun sense of "a flight, flying" is from mid-15c. Baseball fly ball attested by 1866. Slang phrase fly off the handle "lose one's cool" dates from 1825. To do something on the fly is 1856, apparently from baseball.
"run away," Old English fleon (see flee). Fleogan and fleon were often confused in Old English, too. Modern English distinguishes in preterite: flew/fled.
slang, "clever, alert, wide awake," late 18c., perhaps from fly (n.) on the notion of the insect being hard to catch. Other theories, however, trace it to fledge or flash. Slang use in 1990s might be a revival or a reinvention.
"to soar through air," Old English fleogan "to fly" (class II strong verb; past tense fleag, past participle flogen), from West Germanic *fleuganan (cf. Old Saxon and Old High German fliogan, Old Norse flügja, Old Frisian fliaga, Middle Dutch vlieghen, Dutch vliegen, German fliegen), from PIE *pleu- "flowing, floating" (see pluvial).
Notion of "flapping as a wing does" led to noun sense of "tent flap" (1810), which yielded (1844) "covering for buttons that close up a garment." The noun sense of "a flight, flying" is from mid-15c. Baseball fly ball attested by 1866. Slang phrase fly off the handle "lose one's cool" dates from 1825. To do something on the fly is 1856, apparently from baseball.
"run away," Old English fleon (see flee). Fleogan and fleon were often confused in Old English, too. Modern English distinguishes in preterite: flew/fled.
fly (flī)
n.
Any of numerous two-winged insects of the order Diptera.
| fly Any of numerous insects of the order Diptera, having one pair of wings and large compound eyes. Flies include the houseflies, horseflies, and mosquitoes. See more at dipteran. |
adjective
verb
Related Terms
barfly, catch flies, fruit fly, let fly, no flies on, on the fly, shoo-fly
[the first adjective sense, ''clever, alert, etc,'' is of unknown origin, though it is conjectured that it may refer to the difficulty of catching a fly in midair, that it may be cognate with fledge and hence mean ''accomplished, proven, seasoned,'' and that it is a corruption of fla, a shortening of flash; the third verb sense, ''succeed, persuade, etc,'' is fr a cluster of jokes and phrases having to do with the Wright Brothers' and others' efforts to get something off the ground and make it fly; the two adjective senses involve either a survival or a revival of an early 19thcentury British underworld term of unknown origin]
