Wright brothers

Cultural

Orville and Wilbur Wright, American mechanics and inventors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who achieved the first sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine — what we today call an airplane. Their flight was made at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

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.

More than 120 years after the Wright brothers first took flight, America continues to stay at the forefront of aviation.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026

There has been talk of a third runway in west London since not long after the Wright brothers were first airborne.

From BBC • Jan. 29, 2025

Grover C. Bergdoll flying the plane he bought from the Wright brothers.

From New York Times • Nov. 29, 2024

"To me, this is like a Wright brothers moment," de Heer said.

From Science Daily • Jan. 3, 2024

I had been reading about the Wright brothers.

From "Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023