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unfledged

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 20 November 2025

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From un- (suffix meaning ‘not’) +‎ fledged (“furnished with feathers or wings”, adjective).[1]

Adjective

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unfledged (not comparable)

  1. Not having feathers.
    Synonyms: (of a bird) apteric, featherless, unfeathered, unfletched
    1. Of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly.
      Synonyms: callow, featherless
      Antonym: fledged
      • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 381, column 2:
        [W]e poore vnfledg'd / Haue never vving'd from vievv o' th'neſt; nor knovves[sic – meaning know] not / VVhat Ayre's from home.
        A figurative use.
      • 1752, Samuel Foote, Taste. A Comedy, […], London: […] R[ichard] Francklin, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 3:
        [T]his ſuperannuated Beldame gapes for Flattery, like a Neſt of unfledged Crovvs for Food; and vvith them too, gulps dovvn every Thing that's offer'd her—no matter hovv Coarſe; […]
      • 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter IX, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume III, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 168:
        "The little Durands were there, I conclude," said she, "with their mouths open to catch the music, like unfledged sparrows ready to be fed. They never miss a concert."
      • 1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], chapter X, in Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 253:
        "Ay, but thou must whistle louder than an unfledged owzle," said the boy, as Tressilian, having laid down his money, and half ashamed of the folly he practised, made a careless whistle—"You must whistle louder than that, for who knows where the smith is that you call for?—He may be in the King of France's stables for what I know."
      • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Bean-Field”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 173:
        The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.
        A figurative use.
      • 1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “Domestic Experiences”, in Little Women: […], 2nd part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 73:
        "Boy and girl. Aren’t they beauties?" said the proud papa, beaming upon the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels.
        A figurative use.
  2. (figurative)
    1. Of a person: not yet fully grown or mature; lacking experience, like a novice or tyro; immature, inexperienced; hence, of or relating to youth.
      Synonyms: callow, green, unfletched; see also Thesaurus:inexperienced
      Antonyms: see Thesaurus:experienced
    2. Of a thing: not yet fully developed; imperfect, incomplete, unfinished.
      Antonyms: full-fledged, full-blown, full-on
      • 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Animadversions on Some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 251:
        Beſides, it is not poſſible to give a young perſon a juſt vievv of life; he muſt have ſtruggled vvith his ovvn paſſions before he can eſtimate the force of the temptation vvhich betrayed his brother into vice. Thoſe vvho are entering life, and those vvho are departing, ſee the vvorld from ſuch very different points of vievv, that they can ſeldom think alike, unleſs the unfledged reaſon of the former never attempted a ſolitary flight.
      • 1849, James Russell Lowell, “Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades”, in Poems, revised edition, volume II, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC, page 38:
        Yet they who watch your God-compelled return / May see your happy perihelion burn / Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.
      • 1851, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows. A Poem, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, part II, stanza X, page 102:
        Alas, poor people, of an unfledged will / Most fitly expressed by such a callow voice!
      • 1946, Olaf Stapledon, “The Spirit of Man Considers His Plight”, in Death into Life, [Glasgow?]: Good Press, published 2022, →OCLC:
        Fantasy, sheer fantasy? Perhaps! But when we think of time and of eternity, intelligence reels. The shrewdest questions that we can ask about them are perhaps falsely shaped, being but flutterings of the still unfledged human mentality.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From unfledge (“to remove feathers from (a bird)”) +‎ -ed (suffix forming past tense forms of verbs).[2]

Verb

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unfledged

  1. simple past and past participle of unfledge.

References

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  1. ^ “unfledged, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “unfledged, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Compare “unfledge, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2024.

Further reading

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