flyover

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
   • As our train to Paris dashed through the labyrynthine flyovers at Porchefontaine, barely a mile from Versailles, the 75 m.p.h. limit was already almost attained.1961 November, H. G. Ellison, P. G. Barlow, “Journey through France: Part One”, in Trains Illustrated, page 670

   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
   • If Democrats end up flipping state houses in places Trump won in 2016, they will have proved themselves capable of winning in the places coastal elites derisively refer to as “flyover America.”2018 October 30, Rahm Emanuel, “The Biggest Story of the Midterms Is One the Democrats Aren’t Telling”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 02 Nov 2018