Definition/Meaning of fly

• English - Noun: fly (plural flies) Any insect of the order Diptera ; characterized by having two wings (except for some wingless species), also called true flies. 2012 January 28, Douglas Larson, “Runaway Devils Lake”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 46: Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies .…
• English - Verb: fly (third-person singular simple present flies, present participle flying, simple past flew, past participle flown) (intransitive) To travel through the air , another gas , or a vacuum , without being in contact with a grounded surface. The probe flew beyond the solar system. It takes about eleven hours to fly from Frankfurt to Hong Kong. (intransitive) To travel through the air , another gas ,…
• English - Adjective: fly (comparative flier or flyer, superlative fliest or flyest) (dated, slang) Quick-witted , alert , mentally sharp . 1854, Charles Dickens, “Household Words”, in Arcadia, volume 7, page 381: be assured, O man of sin—pilferer of small wares and petty larcener—that there is an eye within keenly glancing from some loophole contrived between accordions and tin breastplates that watches your every…
• English - Etymology: Etymology 1. From Middle English f flye , flehe , flei , fleie , fley , fleye , fleȝe , flie , fliȝe , flye, vliȝe , vlye , from Old English flēge , flēoge , flīeġe (“a fly”), from Proto-West Germanic *fleugā, from Proto-Germanic *fleugǭ (“a fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (“to flow, fly, run; to splash”), enlargement of *plew- (“to flow, fly, run”). Cognates Cognate with Scots flee ,…
• English - Pronunciation: (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA: /flaɪ/ , [flaɪ̯] (Australia) IPA: [flɑ̟ɪ̯] , [flɒ̈ɪ̯] IPA: [flaː] Rhymes: -aɪ