aflight

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

a- +‎ flight.

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

aflight (not comparable)

  1. Flying.
    Synonym: in flight
    • 1874, Ambrose Bierce (as Dod Grile), “The Legend of Immortal Truth” in Cobwebs, London: “Fun” Office, ca. 1884, p. 114,[1]
      Then, like a rocket set aflight, / She sprang, and streaked it for the light!
    • 1930, John R. McMahon, chapter 8, in The Wright Brothers[2], 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[3], New York: Bloomsbury, Part 2, p. 39:
      [] the Vestibule was full of birds and the birds were all aflight.
  2. Covered or filled (with something flying).
    • 1965, A. R. Ammons, “Gain”, in Collected Poems, 1951-1971[4], New York: Norton, page 199:
      curved attics aflight with / angels
    • 1967, Elspeth Huxley, chapter 15, in Their Shining Eldorado: A Journey through Australia,[5], 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[6], New York: Ballantine Books, published 1970, Part 3, p. 362:
      [I] saw a stream of animals, hooved, padded, clawed and dashing, splashing through the ponds for Various Aquatic Birds, setting the night aflight
  3. 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,[7]
      Like shepherdless sheep from wolves aflight
    • 1964, Allan Vaughan Elston, chapter 12, in The Landseekers,[8], Philadelphia: Lippincott, page 121:
      The five now aflight from Massacre Canyon would have posses beating the bush for them.
  4. (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,”[9]
      [] 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,[10]
      [] 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[11], 2nd edition, Pontiac, Michigan, page 47:
      I made this in the night, / When my mind was aflight,