flights

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of flight.

   Heavy fog grounded all flights at the regional airport.

   Budget carriers added new flights between the two cities.

   Note

   The countable meanings of the singular carry straight over into the plural: airline flights between cities, flights of stairs between landings, closely spaced runs of canal locks, and the doves or swallows a collective noun gathers. Stairs and locks usually appear in an of-phrase, as in three flights of stairs, while air travel stands alone. The same spelling also serves the verb's present tense, so the grammar of the sentence tells them apart.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of flight.

   The spinner flights the delivery, tempting the batsman to step out of his crease.

   He carefully flights each arrow with fresh goose feathers before the match.

   Note

   A spin bowler's verb that usually takes an object: someone flights the ball, giving it more loft and more spin than an ordinary delivery. In its broader use, anything thrown or kicked high and floating can be flighted, so the object need not be a ball bowled at a batsman. In speech it is easily heard as the plural noun, but it is the object after it that marks it as a verb.

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