fly

fly
\ \ [OE] Historically, ‘move through the air’ is something of a secondary semantic development for fly. Its distant Indo-European ancestor, *pleu-, denoted rapid motion in general, and in particular ‘flowing’ or ‘floating’, and it produced such offspring as Greek pléosail, float’ and Sanskrit plu- ‘sail, swim’, as well as English fleet, flood, flow, fowl, plover, and pluvial. An extension to that base, *pleuk-, gave rise to Lithuanian plauktifloat, sail, swim’, and to prehistoric West and North Germanic *fleugan, source of German fliegen, Dutch vliegen, Swedish flyga, and English fly, all meaning ‘move with wings’. The insect-name fly is also of considerable antiquity, going back to a prehistoric Germanic derivative *fleugōn or *fleugjōn, but the origins of the adjective flycrafty, sharp’ [19] are not known.
\ \ Cf.FLEET, FLOOD, FLOW, FOWL, PLOVER, PLUVIAL

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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  • Fly — Fly, n.; pl. {Flies} (fl[imac]z). [OE. flie, flege, AS. fl[=y]ge, fle[ o]ge, fr. fle[ o]gan to fly; akin to D. vlieg, OHG. flioga, G. fliege, Icel. & Sw. fluga, Dan. flue. [root] 84. See {Fly}, v. i.] 1. (Zo[ o]l.) (a) Any winged insect; esp.,… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Fly — Тип Публичная компания …   Википедия

  • Fly — (fl[imac]), v. i. [imp. {Flew} (fl[=u]); p. p. {Flown} (fl[=o]n); p. pr. & vb. n. {Flying}.] [OE. fleen, fleen, fleyen, flegen, AS. fle[ o]gan; akin to D. vliegen, OHG. fliogan, G. fliegen, Icel. flj[=u]ga, Sw. flyga, Dan. flyve, Goth. us… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • fly — Ⅰ. fly [1] ► VERB (flies; past flew; past part. flown) 1) (of a winged creature or aircraft) move through the air under control. 2) control the flight of or convey in (an aircraft). 3) move or be hurled quickly through the air. 4) …   English terms dictionary

  • fly — fly1 [flī] vi. FLEW or, for vi. 10, flied, flown or, for vi. 10, flied, flying, flew [ME flien, flegen < OE fleogan, akin to MDu vlegen, Ger fliegen < IE * pleuk < base * pleu : see FLOW] 1. to move through the air; specif., a) …   English World dictionary

  • fly — [flaɪ] verb flew PASTTENSE [fluː] flown PASTPART [fləʊn ǁ floʊn] 1. [intransitive] TRAVEL to travel by plane: • From Belfast, British Airways Cargo flies to London Heathrow, Manchester and Glasgow …   Financial and business terms

  • FLY — (homonymie) Cette page d’homonymie répertorie les différents sujets et articles partageant un même nom …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Fly — ドラゴン クエスト II ダイの大冒険 (Doragon Kuesuto II Dai no Daibōken) Genre Heroïc Fantasy Anime japonais Réalisateur Nobutaka Nishizawa Scénaristes Kôji Inada Riku Sanjo Studio d animation Toei Animation …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Fly! — ist eine von Terminal Reality entwickelte und 1999 von Gathering of Developers veröffentlichte Flugsimulation für Microsoft Windows und Apple Macintosh PCs, der sich durch seine detaillierte Cockpit Instrumentierung und die ausführliche… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Fly! — is a flight simulator for PC and Apple Macintosh computers developed by Terminal Reality and published by Gathering of Developers. It included simulation of air traffic control features as well as aircraft s on board systems, and was acclaimed… …   Wikipedia

  • Fly! II — is a virtual flight simulator developed by Terminal Reality and released on April 26, 2001, by Gathering. It is a sequel to Fly! and Fly! 2k.While it had a promising flight model and a unique approach to the cockpit panel system, the lack of… …   Wikipedia

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