''wing'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''wing'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260817185222-00-⌔

wing - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺

Noun

wing (countable and uncountable, plural wings)

• (zootomy) An appendage of an animal’s (bird, bat, insect) body that enables it to fly.
  • ✤ *The bird was flapping its wings *
• A fin at the side of a ray or similar fish.
• (slang) Human arm.
• (aviation) Part of an aircraft that produces the lift for rising into the air.
  • ✤ I took my seat on the plane, overlooking the wing.
• One of the large pectoral fins of a flying fish.
• One of the broad, thin, anterior lobes of the foot of a pteropod, used as an organ in swimming.
• (botany) Any membranaceous expansion, such as that along the sides of certain stems, or one of the bracts on a dragon fruit, or of a fruit of the kind called samara.
• (botany) Either of the two side petals of a papilionaceous flower.
• A side shoot of a tree or plant; a branch growing up by the side of another.
• Passage by flying; flight.
  • ✤ *to take wing *
  • ✤ Light thickens; and the crow/Makes wing to the rooky wood.¹
• Limb or instrument of flight; means of flight or of rapid motion.
  • ✤ Fiery expedition be my wing.²
• A part of something that is lesser in size than the main body, and located at the side, such as an extension from the main building.
  • ✤ the west wing of the hospital
  • ✤ the wings of a corkscrew
• (figurative) Either of two similar parts of something.
  • ✤ Before going any farther on a wild goose chase I should advise you to verify the admitted American influence in the affair as connectible with Rigby Lacksome […]. Until that point is settled both wings of your deductions are purely in the air.³
• One of the longer sides of crownworks or hornworks in fortification.
• (slang, MLE) Ellipsis of *prison wing *, a cellblock; or prison or doing time by extension.
  • ✤ They got bro-bro stuck on the wing, cah I picked up and bullet him⁴
• Anything that agitates the air as a wing does, or is put in winglike motion by the action of the air, such as a fan or vane for winnowing grain, the vane or sail of a windmill, the sail of a ship, etc.
  • ✤ Fair ship, that from the Italian shore,
    ⁠Sailest the placid ocean-plains
    ⁠With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
    Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.⁵
• A protruding piece of material on a menstrual pad or diaper to hold it in place and prevent leakage.
  • ✤ It’s a bit annoying but (like sanitary pads with wings) it’s worth it if you want to stay extra secure.⁶
• An ornament worn on the shoulder; a small epaulet or shoulder knot.
• A cosmetic effect where eyeliner curves outward and ends at a point.
• A faction of a political movement. Usually implies a position apart from the mainstream center position.
• An organizational grouping in a military aviation service:
  • (UK) A unit of command consisting of two or more squadrons and itself being a sub-unit of a group or station.
  • (US) A larger formation of two or more groups, which in turn control two or more squadrons.
• (UK) A panel of a car which encloses the wheel area, especially the front wheels.
• (nautical) A platform on either side of the bridge of a vessel, normally found in pairs.
• (nautical) That part of the hold or orlop of a vessel which is nearest the sides. In a fleet, one of the extremities when the ships are drawn up in line, or when forming the two sides of a triangle.
  • ✤ their ends may rest a little below the orlop- wing gratings⁷
• (sports) A position in several field games on either side of the field.
  • ✤ Smith started the game in the centre of midfield, but moved to the wing after 30 minutes.
• (sports) A player occupying such a position; a winger.
  • ✤ The Tottenham wing was causing havoc down the right and when he broke past the bemused Sasa Balic once again, Bellamy was millimetres from connecting with his cross as the Liverpool striker hurled himself at the ball.⁸
• (typography, informal, rare) A háček.
  • ✤ ˇ wing, wedge, hǎcek, inverted circumflex (Karel Čapek)⁹
• (theater) One of the unseen areas on the side of the stage in a theatre.
  • ✤ The performers crowded breathlessly in the wings.¹⁰
• (in the plural) The insignia of a qualified pilot or aircrew member.
  • ✤ Anyone and everyone with wings - press officers, operations specialists, even General Curtis LeMay, commander of the U.S. Air Force in Europe - was put on flight duty and took turns flying double shifts for “Operation Vittles.”¹¹
• A portable shelter consisting of a fabric roof on a frame, like a tent without sides.
• On the enneagram, one of the two adjacent types to an enneatype that forms an individual’s subtype of his or her enneatype.
  • ✤ Tom’s a 4 on the enneagram, with a 3 wing.
• (collective) A group of plover.
  • ✤ A wing of plover, followed by a pack of grouse, were too much for him - or rather, too much for me, for he left me to pursue them¹²
  • ✤ Some sportsmen make no scruple about firing into the “thick” of a wing of plovers, and killing as many as they can: plovers being birds that are “here to-day, and gone to-morrow;” and they are so restless and wary, that but few shots can at any time of year be had at them.¹³

Verb

wing (third-person singular simple present wings, present participle winging, simple past and past participlewinged or (colloquial) wung)

• (transitive) To injure slightly (as with a gunshot), especially in the wing or arm.
• (intransitive) To fly.
  • ✤ Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.¹⁴
  • ✤ Birds are winging, no rain is falling from a heavy sky¹⁵
• (intransitive) To travel swiftly.
  • ✤ He had pulled up so expertly that the man escaped, so smoothly that not a passenger was jarred, and now he sat with a dazed and vacant expression on his face, leaning forward on his steering wheel, while caustic inquiry and retort winged unheeded up and down the line behind him.¹⁶
• (transitive, of a building) To add a wing (extra part) to.
• (transitive) To act or speak extemporaneously; to improvise; to wing it.
  • ✤ I lost all my notes I’d made, so was partially winging the meeting.
• (transitive) To throw.
  • ✤ Synonyms: fling, hurl; see also Thesaurus: throw
• (transitive) To furnish with wings.
• (transitive) To transport with, or as if with, wings; to bear in flight, or speedily.
  • ✤ ⁠Deep folly! yet that this could be—
    ⁠That I could wing my will with might
    ⁠To leap the grades of life and light,
    And flash at once, my friend, to thee: […]¹⁷
• (transitive) To traverse by flying.

Etymology

From Middle English winge, wenge, from Old Norse vængr (“wing of a flying animal, wing of a building”; compare vængi (“ship’s cabin”)), from Proto-Germanic ﹡wēingijaz, from Proto-Indo-European ﹡h₂weh₁- (“to blow”), thus related to wind.

Cognate with Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Swedish vinge (“wing”), Elfdalian waingg (“wing”), Faroese vongur (“wing”), Icelandic vængur (“wing”), Norwegian Nynorsk veng (“wing”).

Replaced native Middle English fither (from Old English fiþre, from Proto-Germanic ﹡fiþriją), which merged with Middle English fether (from Old English feþer, from Proto-Germanic ﹡feþrō). More at feather.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: wĭng; IPA: /wɪŋ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (UK): 🔊
• (Northern England, Midlands, without the NG-coalescence) IPA: /ˈwɪŋɡ/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

Printed 2026-08-17.

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Footnotes

1. c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]: ↩

2. c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]: ↩

3. 1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries: ↩

4. 2021 July 18, “‘Woop’ Freestyle” (0:25 from the start), Trizz (lyrics): ↩

5. 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC: ↩

6. 2017, Laura Bates, Girl Up, page 8: ↩

7. 1864, William M. Brady, The Kedge-anchor: ↩

8. 2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

9. 1985, David Grambs, Literary Companion Dictionary, page 378: ↩

10. 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 176: ↩

11. 2004, Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage: ↩

12. 1893, Amelia E. Barr, The Beads of Tasmer ‎${}^{[2]}$, James Clark, page 86: ↩

13. 1860, Marksman (pseud.), The Dead Shot Or Sportsman’s Complete Guide… ‎${}^{[3]}$, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, page 290: ↩

14. 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 168: ↩

15. 1970, “Box of Rain”, in Robert Hunter (lyrics), Phil Lesh (music), American Beauty ‎${}^{[4]}$ (LP record), performed by Grateful Dead: ↩

16. 1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC: ↩

17. 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XL”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 62: ↩

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