Word.ws English Dictionary

low speed, high drag

low speed, high drag adjective: slow and steady.

Adjective

low speed, high drag (not comparable)

  1. (informal) Slow and steady.
    • The use of boundary-layer control to increase the lift of a wing normally results in reductions in landing approach speeds to such an extent that the airplane operates in a low-speed high-drag range where more thrust is required as speed is reduced .(Can we date this quote?), Foriteth Annual Report of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, page 21
    • Spoilers, as well as flaps, help to achieve the low-speed, high-drag descent which is always desirable in a jet transport.1959 August, Marius Lodeesen, “Emergency procedure for civil jets”, in Flying Magazine, volume 65, number 2, page 34
  2. (informal) Not functioning very well; clueless or inefficient.
    • Like all OBC classes, I'm sure she received her share of low speed, high drag Arrrmy tng ! At least you had good company, Vick.1987, West Point Association of Graduates, “'87”, in Assembly, volume 46, page 150
    • The students usually enter the course at a dependent level which is what we at the academy label , "low speed - high drag."1993, Military Intelligence - Issue 2, page 52

Origin of low speed, high drag

From the field of aviation, where wings and other exterior aircraft parts are designed to maximize drag and fuel, thus maximizing the craft's potential ordinance and time over its target.

Questions about low speed, high drag

What does low speed, high drag mean?
Low speed, high drag means slow and steady.
What part of speech is low speed, high drag?
Low speed, high drag is an adjective.

Words near low speed, high drag in the dictionary

  1. low side
  2. low side window
  3. low side windows
  4. low sides
  5. low sock
  6. low speed, high drag
  7. low spirits
  8. low steel
  9. low steels
  10. Low Street
  11. Low Sunday

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: low speed, high drag (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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