fledge
Americanverb (used with object)
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to bring up (a young bird) until it is able to fly.
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to furnish with or as if with feathers or plumage.
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to provide (an arrow) with feathers.
verb (used without object)
adjective
verb
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(tr) to feed and care for (a young bird) until it is able to fly
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Also called: fletch. (tr) to fit (something, esp an arrow) with a feather or feathers
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(intr) (of a young bird) to grow feathers
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(tr) to cover or adorn with or as if with feathers
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fledge
1350–1400; Middle English flegge (fully-)fledged, Old English *flecge, as variant of -flycge; cognate with Old High German flucki, Middle Low German vlügge (> German flügge ); akin to fly 2
Explanation
When baby birds fledge, they grow feathers that are big enough for flying. Just after they fledge, birds take their first practice flights. You can use the verb fledge in several ways — first, to describe what happens when a bird's feathers grow in. A mother bird — or human — who cares for and raises a young bird can also be said to fledge it. You can also talk about the process of putting feathers on something, especially a hunting arrow, this way: "Once you fledge the arrow, you can use it with your bow." The Old English root word is flycge, "having feathers, or fit to fly."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Managing people and predators around nesting beaches, with the modest goal of helping pairs of oystercatchers fledge half a chick more each year, brought a 45% population surge by 2023.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
"We don't know what happens to them after they fledge but it's nice to see them reach that milestone."
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025
Once eaglets fledge, some return the same day and others return in a few days.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2025
It gave up its life within minutes of your birth, because that was its evolved aim—to grow you out of your birth mother so that you could fledge the maternal cavity.
From Slate ● Sep. 7, 2024
The eggs hatch around the first week in June, and the nestlings are ready to fledge in early July.
From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
Once their cores become hot and dense enough, hydrogen fusion will ignite, transforming them into fully fledged stars.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026
“It helps develop souls to be fully fledged human beings who feel like they can go off into the world and be the best versions of themselves,” Groban says.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026
As a recently fledged bird hops around on the ground, unfamiliar choughs swoop down and gently herd it away to join them—that’s how desperate these birds are for helpers.
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
Thai Randolph spent the best part of seven years building comedian Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat from an upstart production studio into a fully fledged media company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock.
From "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
Both types of weather can reduce body mass at fledging by as much as 3%.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2026
Antonio Tejero Molina, the Spanish Civil Guard officer who led a failed 1981 coup that ended up strengthening Spain's fledging democracy, has died aged 93, his family's lawyer said Wednesday.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
Among the Facebook watchers excitement is building ahead of the expected fledging.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025
Hovering differs from fledging because the latter is when the eaglets actually leave the nest.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2025
Still, one reporter insisted on the superior knowledge of the fledging Commander Kane, “nothing had been left undone.”
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
