Word.ws English Dictionary

flightling

flightling noun: one who flees or takes flight; an escapee, fugitive, or refugee.

Noun (1)

flightling (plural flightlings)

  1. One who flees or takes flight; an escapee, fugitive, or refugee.
    • We were the witnesses not of a few handsful of casual flightlings, but of the general exodus of the inhabitants of a whole territory.1878, Archibald Forbes, The War Correspondence of the "Daily News," 1877
    • Refugees, flightlings, black things, whose dissident passage through understanding is often taken for a kind of lawless freedom.2018, Fred Moten, Stolen Life

Noun (2)

flightling (plural flightlings)

  1. A young or little flyer (person or creature that flies).
    • In that country style place with an abundant garden the lady of the house would put special toast slices, a nutty high-grain variety dried to an ideal texture for birds, out for the collection of flightlings that attended the daily garden feast.2013, Sereena Nightshade, Sweetie-Baby, page 316
    • “Very good, flightlings,” Tanta said as she passed them. “Soon you'll be flying. Then you won't be in the baby glade any more.” The flightlings smiled proudly at each other. “Why haven't you got wings?” Tam asked Tanta shyly.2013, Berlie Doherty, The Starburster Stories, page 84

Forms of flightling

pluralflightlings

Origin of flightling

From flight (“fleeing”) + -ling. Cognate with West Frisian flechtling (“refugee”), Dutch vluchteling (“refugee”), German Low German Flüchtling (“refugee”), German Flüchtling (“refugee”). Compare also Danish flygtning (“refugee”), Swedish flykting (“refugee”), Norwegian flyktning (“refugee”).

From flight (“flying”) + -ling.

Questions about flightling

What does flightling mean?
Flightling means one who flees or takes flight; an escapee, fugitive, or refugee.
What part of speech is flightling?
Flightling is a noun.
What is the plural of flightling?
The plural of flightling is flightlings.

Words near flightling in the dictionary

  1. flightless cormorants
  2. flightlessly
  3. flightlessness
  4. flightline
  5. flightlines
  6. flightling
  7. flightlings
  8. flightmap
  9. flightmaps
  10. flightmare
  11. flightmares

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flightling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “flightling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flightling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.