fly-over

Noun

flyover (plural flyovers)

1. (US) A low-level flight, especially of military aircraft, of a ceremonial nature; a flypast (British).
   • Look closely at the commemorative flight suit patch for Super Bowl LX and you’ll notice what appears to be an anomaly: while the military aircraft flyover on Sunday is set to include Air Force B-1 Lancer bombers and F-15C Eagle fighters alongside Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets and F-35C Lightning...2026 February 6, Hope Hodge Seck, “F-22s pulled from Super Bowl flyover due to operations, planner says”, in Military Times, archived from the original on 08 Feb 2026
2. (Commonwealth, Ireland, Philippines, UK) A road or railway that passes over another, allowing routes to cross without interruption.
   • They form part of the vast electrification and reconstruction schemes which have been in hand for a number of years at Liverpool Street, and in suburban Essex, and include the rearrangement of tracks, of which the Ilford flyover forms part; the modern signal boxes, now needed only at key points...1951 January, R. A. H. Weight, “A Railway Recorder in Essex and Hertfordshire”, in Railway Magazine, page 44

   Synonyms:

   overpass

   Antonyms:

   underpass, flyunder

3. (US) A high-level overpass built above main overpass lanes.
4. (US, attributive, informal) Middle America, noncoastal America.
   • Boom Town may not be a definitive text—save that for the historians—but it’s a significant update, one that exchanges the dusty pop-cultural clichés of a “flyover” city for the spark of a sincerely enlightening place.2018 September 26, Carson Vaughan, “'Boom Town' Explodes the Notion of ‘Flyover’ Territory”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 27 Sep 2018