fly

noun

1. Any insect of the order Diptera; characterized by having two wings (except for some wingless species), also called true flies.

   “Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.”

2. Especially, any of the insects of the family Muscidae, such as the common housefly (other families of Diptera include mosquitoes and midges).

   “When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.”

3. Those or any similar but not closely related insect, such as a dragonfly, butterfly, or gallfly.
4. A lightweight fishing lure resembling an insect.

   “I went on trying for fish along the western bank down the river, but only small trout rose at my flies, and a score was the total catch.”

5. A chest exercise performed by moving extended arms from the sides to in front of the chest. (also flye)
6. The butterfly stroke (plural is normally flys).
7. (obsolete)A witch's familiar.

   “a trifling fly, none of your great familiars”

8. (obsolete)A parasite.

   “The fly that plays too near the flame burns in it.”

9. A simple dance in which the hands are shaken in the air, popular in the 1960s.
10. A butterfly (combination of four options).
11. (obsolete)The action of flying; flight.
12. An act of flying.

    “There was a good wind, so I decided to give the kite a fly.”

13. A fly ball.
14. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of fly route.
15. A piece of canvas that covers the opening at the front of a tent.
16. (India, obsolete)The sloping or roof part of the canvas of a tent.

    “[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.”

    “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.”

    “After I had changed my riding-habit for my one other gown, I came out to join the general under the tent-fly.”

17. (often, plural)A strip of material (sometimes hiding zippers or buttons) at the front of a pair of trousers, pants, underpants, bootees, etc.

    “Ha-ha! Your fly's undone!”

    “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.”

    “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”

18. The moving portion of an extendable ladder.
19. The free edge of a flag.
20. The horizontal length of a flag.
21. An exercise that involves wide opening and closing of the arms perpendicular to the shoulders.
22. The part of a weather vane pointing the direction from which the wind blows.
23. That part of a compass on which the points are marked; the compass card.

    “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”

24. 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.
25. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of flywheel.
26. (historical)A type of small, light, fast horse-drawn carriage that can be hired for transportation (sometimes pluralised flys).

    “A fly carried him rapidly to Lady Clavering’s house from the station […]”

    “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.”

    “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.”

    “As we left the house in my fly, which had been waiting, Van Helsing said:— ‘Tonight I can sleep in peace [...].’”

    ““[…] 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.””

27. 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.
28. The pair of arms revolving around the bobbin, in a spinning wheel or spinning frame, to twist the yarn.
29. A shuttle driven through the shed by a blow or jerk.
30. (historical)The person who took the printed sheets from the press.
31. (historical)A vibrating frame with fingers, attached to a power printing press for doing the same work.
32. One of the upper screens of a stage in a theatre.

    “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.”

33. Waste cotton.
34. (Northern-England, Scotland)A wing.

    “The bullet barely grazed the wild fowl's fly.”

35. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of vly (“swamp (in New York)”).

    “June 8, 1708, John Cock and William Nottingham desire 100 acres each [...] Isaac Davis desied a conveyance for the "greenbush" fly or swamp that he hath drained near his land, in the Jaagh Creupel-bosh.”

    “[…] one certain Lot of the Long fly, or swamp situate lying and being [in] the Township of Flatlands […] recorded June 15, 1876, Liber 1244 of Conveyances, at page 494, Kings County. The "East Division" was the Long Vly, […]”

    “[…] to a white maple stake standing in a fly or swamp , thence N [...] to a Hemlock Stake, […]”

verb

1. (intransitive)To travel through the air, another gas, or a vacuum, without being in contact with a grounded surface.

   “Birds of passage fly to warmer regions as it gets colder in winter.”

   “The Concorde flew from Paris to New York faster than any other passenger airplane.”

   “It takes about eleven hours to fly from Frankfurt to Hong Kong.”

   “The little fairy flew home on the back of her friend, the giant eagle.”

   “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

2. (ambitransitive, archaic, poetic)To flee, to escape (from).

   “Fly, my lord! The enemy are upon us!”

   “[V]pon a ſodaine, / As Falſtaffe, ſhe, and I, are newly met, / Let them [children dressed like "urchins, ouphes and fairies"] from forth a ſaw-pit ruſh at once / With ſome diffuſed ſong: Vpon their ſight / We two, in great amazedneſſe will flye: […]”

   “to fly the favours of so good a king”

   “Fly, ere evil intercept thy flight.”

   “Sleep flies the wretch.”

3. (ergative, transitive)To cause to fly (travel or float in the air): to transport via air or the like.

   “Charles Lindbergh flew his airplane The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic ocean.”

   “Why don’t you go outside and fly kites, kids? The wind is just perfect.”

   “Birds fly their prey to their nest to feed it to their young.”

   “Each day the postal service flies thousands of letters around the globe.”

   “The brave black flag I fly.”

4. (intransitive)To travel or proceed very fast; to hasten.

   “He flew down the hill on his bicycle.”

   “It's five o'clock already. Doesn't time fly?”

   “Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.”

   “The dark waves murmured as the ship flew on.”

   “After yet another missed penalty by Kvirikashvili from bang in front of the posts, England scored again, centre Tuilagi flying into the line and touching down under the bar.”

5. (intransitive)To move suddenly, or with violence; to do an act suddenly or swiftly.

   “a door flies open”

   “a bomb flies apart”

   “And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don’t fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex […]”

   “I was upstairs, trying hastily to fix my face and unredden my eyes when I heard a car on the drive and flew to a window to make sure that it was David.”

6. (intransitive)To proceed with great success.

   “His career is really flying at the moment.”

   “One moment the company was flying high, the next it was on its knees.”

7. (colloquial, intransitive)To be accepted, come about or work out.

   “Let's see if that idea flies.”

   “You know, I just don't think that's going to fly. Why don't you spend your time on something better?”

8. (ergative, transitive)To display (a flag) on a flagpole.
9. (transitive)To hunt with a hawk.

   “We'll fly the partridge, or go rouse the deer.”

10. (intransitive)To be in the winged adult stage.

    “This species flies from late summer until frost.”

11. (intransitive)To hit a fly ball; to hit a fly ball that is caught for an out. Compare ground (verb) and line (verb).

    “Jones flied to right in his last at-bat.”

adj

1. (dated, slang)Quick-witted, alert, mentally sharp.

   “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 movement, and is "fly,"— to use a term peculiarly comprehensible to dishonest minds—to the slightest gesture of illegal conveyancing.”

2. (slang)Clandestine, surreptitious

   “Some say God was an alien that tampered with our DNA, the 3 kings followed ufos & Mary had a fly shag 🤔🤫”

3. (slang)Well dressed, smart in appearance; in style, cool.

   “He's pretty fly.”

   “when Ortega got fixed up in his fly duds like that, an ord'nary man's overcoat wouldn't make 'im a pair o' socks.”

   “Give it to me, baby! Uh huh, uh huh! And all the girlies say, I’m pretty fly for a white guy.”

   “Starring the light-skinned Ron O'Neal with his shoulder-length perm and fly threads, Super Fly exudes a sense of black pride as O'Neal bucks the dope game, dismisses his white girlfriend, and beats The Man at his own hustle.”

   “A fly sister rolled in with a suitcase full of hip-hop novels called The Glamorous Life, and an African brother with long dreads wanted to sell them some incense and some fake Jacob watches.”

4. (slang)Beautiful; displaying physical beauty.

   “[Rahiem] My name brings peace and tranquility / So all the fly ladies' hearts can run free”

   “Word is bond she looked divine, she looked as fly as can be I thought she was different cause she was by herself She looked real wholesome, and in good physical health”

   “I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners”

name

1. A river in Papua New Guinea
2. A surname.