fly-by-night
not reliable or responsible, especially in business; untrustworthy: a fly-by-night operation.
not lasting; brief; impermanent; transitory: a fly-by-night theater.
a person or thing that is unreliable, especially a debtor who evades or attempts to evade creditors.
a person regarded as a poor credit risk.
Origin of fly-by-night
1Words Nearby fly-by-night
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use fly-by-night in a sentence
Some of the groups have been around for decades, others are fly-by-night.
And not fly-by-night issues either, but stalwarts such as G.E., Citi, Google.
What gets me is, when you boil our two fly-by-night stories down, I've come here to be alone.
Seven Keys to Baldpate | Earl Derr BiggersShe now knew where she was, but was nearly dying from the exhaustion of his fly-by-night expeditions.
Crooked Trails | Frederic RemingtonThroughout the country local managers began to steal the Madison Square plays and put them on with "fly-by-night" companies.
Charles Frohman: Manager and Man | Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
Theres hundreds of these little fly-by-night mining camps in this here Western country.
Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch | Alice B. EmersonShown up in our newspapers as a ditch-digger—a fly-by-night—a nobody!
The Landloper | Holman Day
British Dictionary definitions for fly-by-night
/ informal /
unreliable or untrustworthy, esp in finance
brief; impermanent
an untrustworthy person, esp one who departs secretly or by night to avoid paying debts
a person who goes out at night to places of entertainment
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for fly-by-night
Shady or untrustworthy: “Before buying stock in a newly formed company, the prudent investor will check its owners' credentials to make sure it's not a fly-by-night operation.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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