Word.ws English Dictionary

flying too close to the sun

flying too close to the sun is the present participle of fly too close to the sun.

Meaning of fly too close to the sun

Verb

fly too close to the sun (third-person singular simple present flies too close to the sun, present participle flying too close to the sun, simple past flew too close to the sun, past participle flown too close to the sun)

  1. (idiomatic) To become overly ambitious or greedy; to overreach oneself; to reach for something unattainable or unachievable.
    • Did Jackson fly too close to the sun? Should he have followed the Royals' advice -- the Royals' pleading, really -- that he play only baseball?1991 March 19, Thomas Boswell, “BO LEARNS DISAPPOINTMENT”, in The Washington Post, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2026

Questions about flying too close to the sun

What is flying too close to the sun the present participle of?
Flying too close to the sun is the present participle of fly too close to the sun.

Words near flying too close to the sun in the dictionary

  1. flying the flag
  2. flying the kite
  3. flying the nest
  4. flying toilet
  5. flying toilets
  6. flying too close to the sun
  7. flying under the radar
  8. flying upon
  9. Flying V
  10. flying visit
  11. flying visits

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flying too close to the sun (page history and authors); fly too close to the sun (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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