flown

1. 1
   verb

   Past participle of fly.

   The pilot has flown this mountain route hundreds of times.

   By the time rescuers arrived, the helicopter had already flown back to base.

   Note

   The participle comes down from Old English flogen, the past participle of flēogan, "to fly". It follows have in perfect tenses (she has flown the route before) and be in the passive (the cargo was flown in overnight). The simple past is flew. It serves every sense of fly, including the archaic, poetic "flee" that survives in phrases like the birds have flown.

2. 2
   adjective

   Suspended on lines in the space above a theater stage, raised out of view until lowered into the scene.

   The flown set pieces hung in darkness until the second act.

   A flown chandelier descended slowly toward the actors below.

   Note

   A stagehand's adjective, grown from the transitive use of the participle of fly: a crew flies a backdrop on rigging lines, and the backdrop is then flown. It usually comes before its noun, as in flown scenery or a flown chandelier. It does not take degrees: a piece is flown or it is not, never "more flown".

3. 3
   verbobsolete

   Past participle of flow. Obsolete.

   Note

   A separate word that only shares the spelling. It comes from Old English flōwen, the past participle of flōwan, "to flow", and has no link to flying. It is obsolete and rare. Modern English uses flowed for both the past and the participle, so "the streams had flown" now reads as an error or a deliberate archaism. In older texts, context tells you which verb is meant: water that has flown has flowed.

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