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aflight. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From a- + flight.
Pronunciation
Adjective
aflight (not comparable)
- Flying.
- Synonym: in flight
- 1874, Ambrose Bierce (as Dod Grile), “The Legend of Immortal Truth” in Cobwebs, London: “Fun” Office, ca. 1884, p. 114,
- Then, like a rocket set aflight, / She sprang, and streaked it for the light!
1930, John R. McMahon, chapter 8, in The Wright Brothers, Boston: Little, Brown, page 150:The elderly Pollyana of the infant aviation had photographs of their glider of 1902 aflight at Kitty Hawk.
2020, Susanna Clarke, Piranesi, New York: Bloomsbury, Part 2, p. 39:[…] the Vestibule was full of birds and the birds were all aflight.
- Covered or filled (with something flying).
1965, A. R. Ammons, “Gain”, in Collected Poems, 1951-1971, New York: Norton, page 199:curved attics aflight with / angels
1967, Elspeth Huxley, chapter 15, in Their Shining Eldorado: A Journey through Australia,, New York: William Morrow, page 311:In the distance the billabong was white with egrets and aflight with ducks;
1968, John Irving, Setting Free the Bears, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1970, Part 3, p. 362: saw a stream of animals, hooved, padded, clawed and dashing, splashing through the ponds for Various Aquatic Birds, setting the night aflight—
- Fleeing.
- 1915, Marvin M. Taylor, “The Roll of the War Drums” in Donald Tulloch (ed.), Songs and Poems of the Great World War, Worcester, MA: Davis Press, p. 17,
- Like shepherdless sheep from wolves aflight
1964, Allan Vaughan Elston, chapter 12, in The Landseekers,, Philadelphia: Lippincott, page 121:The five now aflight from Massacre Canyon would have posses beating the bush for them.
- (obsolete) Showing distress, anxiety or other strong emotion.
- Synonyms: anxious, distressed, moved, troubled, unsettled
- 1547, uncredited translator, A Simple, and Religious Consultation by Hermann of Wied, London: John Day, “Of the crosse, and aflictions,”
- when the crosse, and afliction cometh vpon them, their mynde is aflight, it considereth not that the thynges, whiche it suffereth, be the scourges of Goddes wrath,
- 1817, anonymous (attributed to James Athearn Jones), Hardenbrass and Haverill, London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, Volume 2, Chapter 1, p. 7,
- “ I dare not leave her without locking the door; for the poor thing is quite aflight, and talks about nothing but guns and swords, and bloody knives, and rapes, and other weapons.”
1837, Robert McCracken, “The Indian Excitement”, in Original Miscellaneous Poems, 2nd edition, Pontiac, Michigan, page 47:I made this in the night, / When my mind was aflight,