Word.ws English Dictionary

fly under the radar

fly under the radar verb: to go unnoticed, especially for a long period of time.

Verb

fly under the radar (third-person singular simple present flies under the radar, present participle flying under the radar, simple past flew under the radar, past participle flown under the radar)

  1. (idiomatic) To go unnoticed, especially for a long period of time.

Synonyms of fly under the radar

Forms of fly under the radar

third-person singular presentflies under the radar
present participleflying under the radar
pastflew under the radar
past participleflown under the radar

Origin of fly under the radar

From military contexts, where aircraft would fly low to avoid being detected by radar.

Questions about fly under the radar

What does fly under the radar mean?
Fly under the radar means to go unnoticed, especially for a long period of time.
What part of speech is fly under the radar?
Fly under the radar is a verb.
What is the past tense of fly under the radar?
The past tense of fly under the radar is flew under the radar.

Words near fly under the radar in the dictionary

  1. fly the kite
  2. fly the nest
  3. fly too close to the sun
  4. fly trap
  5. fly traps
  6. fly under the radar
  7. fly up
  8. fly upon
  9. fly whisk
  10. fly window
  11. fly windows

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fly under the radar (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-fly under the radar.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fly under the radar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fly_under_the_radar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.