flyer
Pluralflyers
Pluralflyers
Formsflyers, flyering, flyered
- 1
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- 4A creature that flies, such as a bird or an insect.
The albatross is a remarkably efficient flyer, gliding for hours without flapping.
Few flyers can match the dragonfly's agility in midair.
Note
Two different words share this spelling. Here, and in nearly every noun and verb sense, it is fly plus the agent suffix -er: one who flies. The adjective the comparative of slang fly is fly plus the comparative -er. So a fast flyer and a jacket flyer than mine belong to separate words that only happen to look alike.
- 5A person or thing that moves at high speed.
Their winger is a flyer who leaves defenders standing.
The colt turned out to be a flyer on the racetrack.
Similarspeedster
Note
Railways gave this sense a lasting home: the express train known as a flyer. Railway Magazine in 1952 calls a French express simply "the flyer." The Southern Region's fast Waterloo–Exeter service was "the S.R. flyer." In everyday talk the word praises speed in a runner, a horse or a machine, and it sits comfortably in informal sports commentary.
- 6A risky investment or other venture, especially one taken as a gamble.
She took a flyer on the startup, knowing it might fail completely.
The fund avoided flyers and stuck to safe, proven stocks.
Similargamble, punt, risk, bet, speculation
Note
Money talk borrowed the image of a leap into the air. In Mark Twain's The $30,000 Bequest (1903), Aleck makes "her first flyer on a margin": a speculative buy on the stock market, made with fear and trembling. Today the word lives mostly in the fixed phrase take a flyer on something, meaning to gamble on an uncertain prospect.
- 7To hand out leaflets, especially for advertising or promotion.
Activists flyer regularly to raise awareness about the issue.
The volunteers flyered tirelessly throughout the campaign.
Similarleaflet
Note
The verb grew straight out of the leaflet, and in this use it takes no object: you simply go out flyering. Mark Fisher's The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) treats it as a craft, quoting Neil McKinnon: "Are you flyering in the right place at the right time?" The forms are regular (flyers, flyering, flyered), with no doubled r.
- 8To cover a location with leaflets, or to give leaflets to a group of recipients.
Promoters flyered the entire downtown ahead of the concert.
The team will flyer all the parked cars in the lot.
Similarleaflet
Note
Here the object is where or to whom the leaflets go, never the leaflets themselves. You flyer a street, a campus or a parking lot, and you flyer commuters. To name the paper itself, switch to hand out or distribute flyers. Without an object, the verb becomes its intransitive partner.
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- 10The team member who is raised, tossed, or held aloft by one or more others during a stunt or routine.
The flyer held a steady pose while the bases supported her feet.
During the toss, the flyer tucked into a flip before being caught.
Note
Every stunt group divides into the people below and the one above. The bases lift, and the flyer is lifted, tossed or held aloft. The flyer's job is to hold body positions and perform skills in the air while others supply the force. Cheerleading uses the word most, but acrobatics and synchronized swimming name the raised performer the same way.
- 11The pilot of an airplane; a person who operates an aircraft.
The veteran flyer had logged thousands of hours in open-cockpit planes.
Early flyers braved unreliable engines and primitive instruments.
Note
A word with a period feel, now dated in this use. Aviator is its near twin, and aviatrix the old feminine form; both carry the same air of early flight. For a present-day pilot, say pilot. Flyer in this sense reads as historical or deliberately nostalgic, which suits writing about the first generations of aviation.
- 12A straight, rectangular stair step of uniform width, unlike a tapered winder that turns the staircase around a corner.
A run of flyers leads straight up before the winders turn the corner.
The staircase used a single flyer between two sets of winders.
Oppositewinder
- 13An arch that ties a flying buttress to the structure it braces, carrying the outward thrust across open space.
The flyer transmits the lateral thrust of the vault to the outer pier.
Several flyers span the gap between the nave wall and the buttress towers.
Note
Builders divide the flying buttress into parts, and this is the airborne one: the arch that leaps across open space between wall and pier. The pier is the heavy mass that resists. The flyer is the bridge that carries the wall's outward push over to it. Keep it apart from the straight stair step, another builder's flyer that shares only the name.
- 14A stray shot that falls well away from the main cluster of hits on a target.
A flyer high and to the right pulled his score down despite a tight cluster.
Coaches taught the recruits to note any flyer and check their breathing.
Note
A target shooter reads a group, not single holes, and the flyer is the shot that breaks it. Shooters usually blame it on a moment's error, a variation in the ammunition or a brief disturbance, not on the weapon's own spread. One flyer in a tight cluster therefore says more about that shot than about the gun.
- 15The part of a spinning machine that twists the thread and guides it onto the bobbin as the bobbin winds.
As the wheel turned, the flyer twisted the fibers into a tight yarn.
A worn flyer caused uneven twist along the finished thread.
- 16A premature start in a race, made before the official starting signal is given.
Her flyer off the blocks drew an immediate recall from the starter.
Officials disqualified him after a second flyer at the start.
Note
Race officials' word for jumping the gun: the competitor who breaks before the signal has made a flyer, and the field is called back. It belongs to timed races such as athletics and is used informally of the athlete at fault. A report might say a sprinter was recalled after a flyer.
- 17A female kangaroo, also called a doe, jill, or roo.
The flyer carried a joey in her pouch as she bounded away from the road.
Rangers asked hunters to spare any flyer traveling with young.
Note
A name that paints a picture: the female kangaroo is called a flyer because of the high speed at which she moves. It is the same fly-plus-agent-suffix as the rest of the family, applied to an animal whose bounding could pass for flight. Doe and jill are the plainer alternatives. This one shares its image with a fast-moving person or thing.
- 18The open, ringing hi-hat pattern played on each beat, a hallmark of disco drumming; also known as the flying cymbal.
The track's groove leaned on a relentless flyer over the four-on-the-floor kick.
He opened the hi-hat into a flyer to lift the energy of the chorus.
Note
Drummers' shorthand: the flying cymbal, clipped to flyer. The hi-hat opens and closes continuously, often with the accent on the upbeats. That shimmering wash became a signature timekeeping texture on many 1970s disco and soul recordings. The full name and the short one mean the same pattern, so either can be used when describing a groove.
- 19Comparative form of fly: more fly.
The remix sounds flyer than the original cut.
She looked flyer than ever when she walked into the party.
Note
The comparative of slang fly, built with -er instead of more: flyer than the original, as against more fly. Its base word carries several slang meanings: stylish, good-looking, secretive, and, in dated use, quick-witted. The comparative takes its sense from context. In print it collides with the noun of the same spelling; the creature that flies explains how the two words part.
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Practice
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Origins
Formed from "fly" plus the agent-noun suffix "-er". In the sense of a female kangaroo, the name comes from the high speed at which they move.
Formed from "fly" plus "-er", the comparative suffix.