fly
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: flī
ipa: /flaɪ/
ipa: [flaɪ]
ipa: [flɑj]
ipa: [flaɪ]
ipa: [fləj]
ipa: [flɑɪ]
rhymes: -aɪ
Forms: form: flys
form: flies
Etymology: From Middle English flye (“flying, flight”), from Old English flyge (“flying, flight”), from Proto-Germanic *flugiz.
Senses: glosses: The action of flying; flight.
examples: text: There was a good wind, so I decided to give the kite a fly.
glosses: An act of flying.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A fly ball.
topics: American-football
ball-games
football
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Ellipsis of fly route.
glosses: A piece of canvas that covers the opening at the front of a tent.
examples: text: [T]he main part of the operation of pitching the tent, consisting of raising the flies, may be performed, and shelter afforded, without the walls, &c., being present.
ref: 1810, Thomas H. Williamson, The East India Vade-Mecum, page 452:
text: The cavalcade drew up in line, / Pitch'd the marquee, and went to dine. / The bearers and the servants lie / Under the shelter of the fly.
ref: 1816, The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi, page 152:
text: After I had changed my riding-habit for my one other gown, I came out to join the general under the tent-fly.
ref: 1885, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Boots and Saddles:
glosses: The sloping or roof part of the canvas of a tent.
examples: text: Ha-ha! Your fly's undone!
text: February 2014 Y-Front Fly
Y-Front is a registered trademark for a special front fly turned upside down to form a Y owned by Jockey® International. The first Y-Front® brief was created by Jockey® more than 70 years ago.
text: June 2014 The Hole In Men’s Underwear: Name And Purpose
Briefs were given an opening in the front. The point of this opening (the ‘fly’) was to make it easier to pee with clothes on
glosses: A strip of material (sometimes hiding zippers or buttons) at the front of a pair of trousers, pants, underpants, bootees, etc.
topics: history
human-sciences
sciences
vexillology
glosses: The free edge of a flag.
topics: history
human-sciences
sciences
vexillology
glosses: The horizontal length of a flag.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
weightlifting
glosses: An exercise that involves wide opening and closing of the arms perpendicular to the shoulders.
glosses: The part of a weather vane pointing the direction from which the wind blows.
examples: text: to the fly of the compass, which before was made equal, I was still constrained to put some small piece of wire on the south part there
ref: a. 1850, Robert Norman, (Please provide the book title or journal name):
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: That part of a compass on which the points are marked; the compass card.
glosses: Two or more vanes set on a revolving axis, to act as a fanner, or to equalize or impede the motion of machinery by the resistance of the air, as in the striking part of a clock.
glosses: Ellipsis of flywheel.
examples: text: A fly carried him rapidly to Lady Clavering’s house from the station […]
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 74, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
text: Can I get a fly, or a carriage of any kind? Is it too late?
I dismissed the fly a mile distant from the park, and getting my directions from the driver, proceeded by myself to the house.
ref: 1859, Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White:
text: A glass coach, it may be as well to observe, is a carriage and pair hired by the day, and a fly a one-horse carriage hired in a similar manner.
ref: 1861, Henry Mayhew, William Tuckniss, London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopœdia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work, volume 3, page 359:
text: As we left the house in my fly, which had been waiting, Van Helsing said:— ‘Tonight I can sleep in peace [...].’
ref: 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:
text: “[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: And, driving back in the fly, Macmaster said to himself that you couldn't call Mrs. Duchemin ordinary, at least.
ref: 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 54:
text: Then we read at New Southgate and Colney Hatch, that "Cabs are on stand at station from 9 a.m. to departure of last down train. Private omnibuses, flys and other conveniences can be had at short notice on application to Messrs. Walker & Son." At country stations we are often told, "a fly may be obtained on application to Mrs. Brown of the Black Dog," or some other cheery information.
ref: 1941 December, “Notes and News: Timetable features of the Past”, in Railway Magazine, page 570:
text: Chepstow is good for excursions, and Bradshaw tells me I can get a fly to Tintern Abbey, although the fare structure seems particularly complicated. Alternatively, I could go for a simpler choice and just opt for "single horse, 1s", although I doubt I'd survive to tell the tale.
ref: 2023 February 22, Stephen Roberts, “Reading... between the lines... to Wales”, in RAIL, number 977, page 59:
glosses: A type of small, light, fast horse-drawn carriage that can be hired for transportation (sometimes pluralised flys).
glosses: In a knitting machine, the piece hinged to the needle, which holds the engaged loop in position while the needle is penetrating another loop; a latch.
glosses: The pair of arms revolving around the bobbin, in a spinning wheel or spinning frame, to twist the yarn.
topics: business
manufacturing
textiles
weaving
glosses: A shuttle driven through the shed by a blow or jerk.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: The person who took the printed sheets from the press.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: A vibrating frame with fingers, attached to a power printing press for doing the same work.
examples: text: It was as if I been idling on a brightly lit stage-set of a country garden, ripe with every sort of pastoral fancy, and then had turned a flat and come on the stagehands and the wings, the propped sets, the men working in the flies—all the dark mechanics that produced the pretty picture the audience saw.
ref: 2006, Alistair Cooke, The American Home Front, 1941-1942, page 128:
glosses: One of the upper screens of a stage in a theatre.
qualifier: cotton manufacture
glosses: Waste cotton.
Derived terms: big fly
fly ash
fly ball
fly-coach
fly half
flyhawk
flyman
flyperson
fly system
fly window
infield fly
infield fly rule
no-fly
no-fly list
no fly list
no-fly zone
on the fly
on-the-fly
pop fly