Flight sb.¹

Forms: 1 fliht, flyht, flyð, 2–3 fluht(ü), south. vluht, 3–4 fliȝt, (fliht, flith), 3, 5 flygt, 4–6 flyght(e, (6 fleight, flighte), 5 flyte, 6 Sc. flicht, 3– flight. [OE. flyht masc. = OS. fluht fem. (MDu., Du. vlucht fem.):—OTeut. *fluhti-, f. *flug- weak root of fleug-an to FLY.]

  1.  The action or manner of flying or moving through the air with or as with wings. Also in phrases, To take (make, wing, etc.) a or one’s flight: to fly. lit. and fig.

a. 900.  Martyrology Fragm., 8, in O. E. Texts, 177. Þa hi bæron to heofonum mid hiora fiðra flyhte.

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Deut. xxxii. 11. Swa earn his briddas spænþ to flihte.

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 81. Mid þisse fluhte he fleh in to houene.

c. 1220.  Bestiary, 59. Siðen his fliȝt is al unstrong.

c. 1250.  Gen. & Ex., 277. ‘Min fliȝt’ he seide, ‘ic wile up-taken.’

1340.  Hampole, Pr. Consc., 542.

c. 1435.  Torrent of Portugal, 548.

1605.  Shaks., Macb., III. ii. 40.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., V. 203. The flights and arrivals of which [Pigeons] I have often seene in the time of my wintering in Aleppo.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 14.

1748.  Anson’s Voy., III. ii. 309. They could scarce fly further than an hundred yards at a flight, and even that fatigued them to such a degree, that they could not readily rise again.

1857.  H. Reed, Lect. Eng. Poets, I. viii. 270. Undying words which wing their flight over each generation as it rises and passes away.

1871.  E. Spender, Restored, I. vi. 115. Crowds of chaffinches went flitting along with their quick dancing flight.

  † b.  Power of flying. Also in fig. phrase, To fond one’s flight, i.e., to make trial of one’s powers.

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 132. Þe heuinesse of hire flesche & flesches unðeawes binimeð hire hire vluht.

c. 1425.  Seven Sag. (P.), 1487.

  c.  Falconry. Pursuit of game, etc. by a hawk; also, the quarry flown at.

1530.  Palsgr., 221/1. Flyght of a hauke, uol.

1548.  Hall, Chron., Edw. IV., 199 b. That king Edward should be destitute, of one of his best Hawkes, when he had moste nede to make a flight.

1603.  Breton, Packet Mad Lett. (Grosart), 21/1. If your Falcons be in tune, I shal be glad to see a flight.

1798.  Sotheby, trans. Wieland’s Oberon (1826), I. 17.

1828.  Sir J. S. Sebright, Observations on Hawking, 51–2. The goshawk will take landrails and pheasants; but if much used to these easier flights, will not even attempt to fly partridges.

1855.  Salvin & Brodrick, Falconry, iv. 66. The Norfolk plover seldom takes the air, and makes an easy flight.

  fig.  1654.  R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 22. This steddy praise, is the flight and aime of truly noble soules.

  † d.  The time when the young birds first fly.

1600.  Surflet, Countrie Farme, I. xxii. 120. There are some farmers which sell at euery flight, two hundred, & three hundred paire vnto the vittailers.

  e.  Of birds or insects: A migration or issuing forth in bodies.

1823.  Moor, Suffolk Words, Flight, the second or third migration from a bee-hive. The first only is called a Swarm.

1832.  Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. 114. A similar flight [of butterflies] at the end of the last century is recorded by M. Louch.

  2.  Swift movement in general; esp. of a projectile, etc. through the air. Of the heavenly bodies: Swift and regular course. Phr. to take a or one’s flight.

c. 1250.  Gen. & Ex., 137.

1545.  Ascham, Toxoph., II. (Arb.), 152. As concernynge the wether, a perfyte archer must firste learne to know the sure flyghte of his shaftes, that he may be boulde alwayes.

1662.  Dryden, Astræa Redux, 270.

1684.  R. H., School Recreat., 85.

1715–20.  Pope, Iliad, XV. 320.

1785.  Burns, To W. Simpson, xxix.

1801.  T. Roberts, Eng. Bowman, x. 237. By comparing the flight of long, short, heavy and light, and of sharp and blunt-piled arrows in all weathers.

1818.  Shelley, Hymn Castor, 7.

1846.  Greener, Sc. Gunnery, 328. If a high velocity be given to them to ensure a horizontal flight, the quantity of powder exploded must be in proportion.

1886.  Ruskin, Præterita, I. x. 325. I was allowed without remonstrance to go on measuring the blue of the sky, and watching the flight of the clouds, till I had forgotten most of the Latin I ever knew, and all the Greek, except Anacreon’s ode to the rose.

  † b.  (Arrows) of the same flight: having the same power of flight; of equal size and weight.

1545.  Ascham, Toxoph., II. (Arb.), 131. You must haue diuerse shaftes of one flight, fethered with diuerse winges, for diuerse windes: for if the wynde and the fether go both one way the shaft wyll be caryed to moche.

1596.  Shaks., Merch. V., I. i. 141.

  c.  Swift passage (of time).

1647.  H. Vaughan, Son-Dayes, i.

1667.  Milton, P. L., II. 220.

1742.  Young, Nt. Th., i. 147.

1820.  Shelley, Good Night, 5.

  3.  fig. A mounting or soaring out of the regular course or beyond ordinary bounds; an excursion or sally (of the imagination, wit, intellect, ambition, etc.).

1668.  Denham, On Cowley, 47.

a. 1674.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., XIV. (1704), III. 414. Any other Man than himself, who was accustom’d to extraordinary flights in the Air.

1692.  Wagstaffe, Vind. Carol., ii. 34. That happy Flight of Sir Richard Fanshawe.

1732.  Law, Serious C., v. (ed. 2), 77. These are not speculative flights, or imaginary notions, but are plain and undeniable laws, that are founded in the nature of rational beings, who as such are obliged to live by reason, and glorify God by a continual right use of their several talents and faculties.

1760.  C. Johnston, Chrysal (1822), III. 10. A silence more expressive of his soul, than all the flights of eloquence.

1781.  Cowper, Ep. Lady Austen, 16.

1850.  Hannay, Singleton Fontenoy, I. viii. Temple, having attained his favourite ambition, to be able to smoke ‘shag,’ had some thoughts of trying opium, which he believed a higher flight, but Singleton dissuaded him.

1868.  Max Müller, Chips (1880), III. v. 107. Drinking songs and table songs do not belong to the highest flights of poetry; but if the delights of friendly meetings and greetings belong to some of the brightest moments of human happiness, why should a poet hold them to be beneath his muse?

  † b.  A fit or burst of unreasonable humour, caprice, or the like; also, flightiness, caprice.

1712–4.  Pope, Rape Lock, V. 32.

1754.  Richardson, Grandison, I. vii. 33. But is not this wish of yours, that ten years of bloom were over-past, and that you were arrived at the thirtieth year of your age, a very singular one? A flight! a mere flight! Ask ninety-nine of your sex out of an hundred, if they would adopt it. Ibid. (1781), VII. l. 254. I am, at times, said she, too sensible of running into flight and absurdity.

  † 4.  A state of flutter or agitation; a trembling, fright. Cf. FLAUGHT sb.² 1, FLOCHT, and FLIGHT v. A flight, in flight: in a state of perturbation. (The examples of a flight, placed under AFFLICT ppl. a., possibly belong here.) Obs.

1513.  More, Rich. III., Wks. (1557), 42/2. Y^e quene in gret flight & heuines, bewailing her childes rain. Ibid. (1529), A Dialoge of Comfort against Tribulacion, I. Introd. Wks. (1557), 1141/2. I waxed therwith miself sodenly somewhat aflighte.

1535.  Coverdale, 1 Sam. xiv. 15. And there came a fearfulnes and flight in the hoost vpon the felde.

  5.  † a. A wing (obs.). b. In later use collect. the flight feathers, or those used in flying.

c. 1205.  Lay., 2885.

1735.  J. Moore, Columbarium, 39. If the three Colours run thro’ the Feathers of the Flight and Tail, it is reckon’d a very good Almond, or Ermine, and is much valued.

1765.  Treat. Dom. Pigeons, 74. The bald-pated tumblers, which are of various colours in their body, as blacks, blues, &c. with a clean white head, a pearl eye, white flight and white tail, are esteemed good flyers.

  6.  a. The distance which a bird can or does fly. † Capon’s flight (see quot.).

1600.  Surflet, Countrie Farme, I. xxii. 121. Let it [the doue-house] be distant a flight or two from any water, to the ende that the olde pigeon may warme that which she bringeth for to giue to her yoong ones.

1667.  Milton, P. L., VII. 3.

1730–6.  in Bailey (folio), s.v. Capon’s flight, a compass of ground, such as a capon might fly over, due to the eldest of several brothers in dividing the father’s effects, when there is no principal manour in a lordship.

c. 1820.  S. Rogers, Italy, Meillerie, 28.

  fig.  1667.  Milton, P. L., VIII. 198.

1856.  Ld. Cockburn, Mem., ii. (1874), 116. It used to be said that if Hermand had made the heavens, he would have permitted no fixed stars. His constitutional animation never failed to carry him a flight beyond ordinary mortals.

  b.  The distance to which a missile may be shot. Cf. Fr. volée.

1608.  Yorksh. Trag., I. viii. To throw me now, within a flight o’ the town.

1801.  Southey, Thalaba, IV. xv.

  c.  Flight of a shot (see quot.).

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flight of a shot, the trajectory formed between the muzzle of the gun and the first graze.

  7.  The series of stairs between any two landings; hence a series of steps, terraces, etc., ascending without change of direction. [So F. volée.]

1703.  T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 249. From this second Half-pace the Stairs fly directly back again, parallel to the first flight.

1780.  Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 4 June, I. 366. Miss Burney, better go up another flight (pointing up stairs)—if you’ll take my advice, you’ll go up another flight, for there’s no room anywhere else.

1820.  W. Irving, Sketch Bk., I. 171. It is a huge gray tower, that has stood the brunt of ages, and is still in good preservation. It stands on a mound, which elevates it above the other parts of the castle, and a great flight of steps leads to the interior.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 243. On the slope which has long been the scene of the holiday sports of the Londoners, were constructed flights of terraces, of which the vestiges may still be discerned.

1859.  W. Collins, Q. of Hearts (1875), 21. She was away up the second flight before he could say any more.

  b.  A series of locks on a canal, rising like steps one above the other.

1861.  Smiles, Engineers, II. 146. He can discern the canal mounting up the rocky sides of the hills until it is lost in the distance; and as he emerges from the tunnel at its other end, it is again observed descending from the hill-tops by a flight of locks down to the level of the railway.

  c.  A set of rails or hurdles. [Possibly a distinct word, repr. OE. fleohta, = Ger. flechte hurdle.]

1852.  R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, lxviii. 382. Eyeing Mr. Sponge clearing a stiff flight of rails, with a gap near at hand.

1865.  Pall Mall G., 9 Feb., 3. Some … would as lief have led a forlorn-hope as put a horse at a flight of hurdles.

1894.  Daily News, 14 Dec., 8/1. Rylstone started in strong demand for the Handicap Hurdle, but he died away at the last flight.

  8.  A collection or flock of beings or things flying in or passing through the air together: a. of birds or insects. Also the special term for a company of doves, swallows, and various other birds.

c. 1250.  Gen. & Ex., 3011.

c. 1430.  Lydg., Hors, Shepe & G. (1822), 31. A flight of goshawkes A flight of douves A flight of cormerants.

1486.  Bk. St. Albans, F vj b. A Flight of swalowes.

1556.  J. Heywood, Spider & F., lii.

1588.  Shaks., Tit. A., V. iii. 68.

1605.  Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iii. 1. Vocation, 871.

1710.  Addison, Tatler, No. 161, 18 April, ¶ 8. These Trees were inhabited by Storks, that came thither in great Flights from very distant Quarters of the World.

1875.  ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, I. ix. 118. A ‘flight’ or ‘rush’ of dunbirds.

  transf.  1850.  L. Hunt, Autobiog., II. xvii. 96. The rest of the heaven covered with large flights of little burnished and white clouds.

  b.  A company of angels.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., V. ii. 371.

1671.  Milton, P. R., II. 383.

1860.  Hawthorne, Marble Faun (1879), II. xiii. 129. Around their lofty cornices hover flights of sculptured angels.

  c.  A volley of missiles, esp. arrows.

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 605.

a. 1587.  Garrard, The Arte of Warre (1591), 2. A whole flight of arrowes.

1640.  Habington, Edw. IV., 17. In this trouble the Southerne men shot another flight, and the wind conspiring with their cunning blew a tempest of haile and snow into their faces.

1726.  Swift, Gulliver, I. i. I felt above an hundred Arrows discharged on my left Hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and besides they shot another Flight into the Air, as we do Bombs in Europe.

1864.  Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 93.

1869.  Boutell, Arms & Arm., viii. 131. The English archers with a sure aim poured upon them their deadly arrows in flights thick as hail.

  d.  colloq. In the first flight: in the van, taking a leading place.

1852.  Smedley L. Arundel, xxxix. 338. I’ll pick up half-a-dozen fellows that I know you’ll like to meet, regular top-sawyers, that you’re safe to find in the first flight, be it where it may.

1893.  Sir G. Chesney, Lesters, III. II. xxi. 15. While his sisters … had all been in the first flight, he had come up with the ruck.

  9.  The young birds that take wing at one time, e.g., the March flight or the May flight of pigeons.

1577.  B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 10 b. For my Dovehouse.—The great flyghtes of this house must needes fyll the maisters purse, and serve the Kitchen well.

1600.  Surflet, Countrie Farme, I. xxii. 125. At this time they [pigeons] affoord you a flight, which is called the March flight, and they are the most fat, tender and daintie of all the yeere.

1829.  Southey, Corresp. with C. Bowles (1881), 177. The flight of summer birds are off also, or on the wing.

  transf.  1751.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 175, 19 Nov., ¶ 6. Every season brings a new flight of beauties into the world, who have hitherto heard only of their own charms, and imagine that the heart feels no passion but that of love.

  10.  A flight-arrow (see 15).

1464.  Mann. & Househ. Exp., 248. Item, In fflytys ffor my mastyr the sayd day, viij.d.

1540.  Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 9. With any prick shafte or fleight.

1599.  B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., V. x. Here be [arrowes] of all sorts, flights, rouers, and butt-shafts.

a. 1616.  Beaum. & Fl., Bonduca, I. i.

1801.  T. Roberts, Eng. Bowman, vi. 151. For very small and light flights, deal seems to be the most eligible; as, being the stiffest wood, it stands best in the bow.

  b.  = FLIGHT-SHOOTING.

1557.  in Vicary’s Anat. (1888), App. iii. 178. For the best game of the flight, he shall haue a flight of golde of the value of x s.

1599.  Shaks., Much Ado, I. i. 40.

  11.  The husk or glume of oats, oat-chaff. Also, the outer covering of the coffee-berry.

1831.  Loudon, Encycl. Agric., Gloss. (ed. 2), 1243/2. Oat flights are the glumes of the oat.

1855.  Morton’s Cycl. Agric., II. 722. Flights, oat chaff.

  12.  Naut. a. = FLY-BOAT, a Dutch flat-bottomed boat. [? A distinct word = floyt, FLUTE sb.²] b. (see quot. 1850).

1769.  Falconer, Dict. Marine (1776), Fly-boat or Flight.

c. 1850.  Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 118. Flight. A sudden rising, or a greater curve than sheer, as the cheeks, cat-heads, &c. Flight of the transoms, as the ends or arms of the transoms … become more narrow as they approach the keel, the general figure or curve which they thus describe … is called the Flight of the Transoms.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flight, a Dutch vessel or passage-boat on canals.

1879.  Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 190/1. Special care is needed in fixing the lower cant-timbers at their proper heights and ‘flights’ or deviations from the transverse lines.

  13.  In various technical uses.

  a.  Lead-smelting. A light, volatile substance, given off during the melting of lead-ore.

1668.  Glanvill, in Phil. Trans., II. 771. There is a flight in the smoak, which falling upon the Grass, poysons those Cattel that eat of it.

1710.  J. Harris, Lex. Techn., II. s.v. In melting the Lead-Oar in the Works at Mendip, there is a Substance flies away in the Smoak which they call the Flight.

1823.  Crabb, Techn. Dict., Flight (Mech.) a substance so called, which flies away in the smoke in the melting of lead.

  b.  Angling. The set of fish-hooks in a spinning-trace.

1865.  H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, Bk. Pike, x. 136–7. The bait … [being] placed on the flight, and … hanging about 2 yards from the top of the rod, the spinner unwinds from the reel as much line as he thinks he can manage.

1867.  in F. Francis, Angling, iv. (1880), 105–6. He then hooks the fish on to his line by a certain arrangement of hooks called a flight or set, so that by communicating a crook to the body or tail it may, when drawn through the water, revolve rapidly on the screw principle.

  c.  Campanology. The lower part or tail of the clapper of a bell.

1872.  Ellacombe, Ch. Bells Devon, ii. 25. Bells are sometimes chimed by what is called ‘clocking’ or ‘clappering’ them; that is, by hitching the rope round the flight or tail of the clapper, so as to pull it athwart against the side of the bell.

1874.  Sir E. Beckett, Clocks, Watches & Bells (ed. 6), 345. The tail F, called the flight, is almost always requisite to make the clapper fly properly.

  d.  Machinery. (see quots.)

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 882/1. Flight.… 2. The slope or inclination of the arm of a crane or of a cat-head. 3. A spiral wing or vane on a shaft, acting as a propeller or conveyor.

  14.  attrib. and Comb. as flight-fond, -season, -time; flight-performing ppl. adj.

1784.  Cowper, Task, VI. 426.

1801.  W. B. Daniel, Rural Sports, II. 475. A decoy for Dun Birds is called a *flight pond.

1886.  Daily News, 12 Oct., 3/1. We are just now in the *flight season.

1881.  Blackw. Mag., CXXX. Dec., 749/1. All repairs and work on the decoy must be carried on after *flight-time, when the birds are away feeding.

  15.  Special comb., as flight-arrow, a light and well-feathered arrow for long-distance shooting; flight-feather, one of the wing-feathers on which a bird depends for its power of flight; † flight-head, ‘a wild-headed person’ (Nares); flight-muscle, one of the muscles by which the wings are worked in flight; † flight-ripe a., fit to fly; flight-shaft = flight-arrow. Also FLIGHT-SHOOTING, SHOT.

1801.  T. Roberts, Eng. Bowman, vi. 153. Roving arrows are much heavier, and *flight arrows much lighter, than others.

1881.  Greener, Gun, 6. The longest well-authenticated distance for shooting with flight-arrows is about 600 yards.

1735.  J. Moore, Columbarium, 35. The nine *flight Feathers of the Wing.

1890.  Coues, Field & Gen. Ornith., II. iii. 164. The Remiges, or Flight-Feathers, give the wing its general character, mainly determining both its size and its shape.

1605.  in Court & Times Jas. I. (1848), I. 38. Some insurrection hath been in Warwickshire, and begun the very same day that the plot should have been executed; some Popish *flight-heads thinking to do wonders.

1892.  W. P. Ball, Effects Use & Disuse, 64. The shortening of the sternum in pigeons is attributed to disuse of the *flight muscles attached to it.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XII. i. (Tollem. MS.). Whan hire [the eagle’s] briddes beth *flyȝte-ripe sche putteþ hem oute of hire neste.

1597.  Daniel, Civ. Wars, VIII. xv.

1840.  G. A. Hansard, Archery, xi. 406–7. The trunk of some distant oak, a hillock, or a thorn-bush, barely within the range of his lightest flight-shaft; with the mole hill and the thistle top, distant, on the contrary, only a score of paces, must alternately be the objects of his aim.