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phugoids

phugoids is the plural of phugoid.

Meaning of phugoid

Noun

phugoid (plural phugoids)

  1. The motion of an aircraft, missile, or other flying object continuously oscillating in a vertical plane due to the object pitching up and climbing, thus slowing down; then pitching down and descending, thus speeding up.
    • As the amplitude of the phugoid is increased beyond the limits of the semicircle, there is a rapid shortening of the time period as shown by the manner in which the time curve falls away almost immediately after that critical form of flight path is passed. […] [I]f we select phugoids of greater and...1908, F[rederick] W[illiam] Lanchester, “The Phugoid Theory—The Flight Path Plotted”, in Aerodonetics: Constituting the Second Volume of a Complete Work on Aerial Flight […], London: Archibald...

See all 2 meanings of phugoid

Questions about phugoids

What is phugoids the plural of?
Phugoids is the plural of phugoid.

Words near phugoids in the dictionary

  1. phudniks
  2. phuds
  3. Phuentshogpelri
  4. Phuentsholing
  5. phugoid
  6. phugoids
  7. Phukan
  8. Phuket
  9. phulka
  10. phulkari
  11. phulkaris

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phugoids (page history and authors); phugoid (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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