singe one's wings
singe one's wings verb: to sustain harm, loss or ruin by doing some risky or perilous deed.
Verb
singe one's wings (third-person singular simple present singes one's wings, present participle singeing one's wings, simple past and past participle singed one's wings)
Forms of singe one's wings
| third-person singular present | singes one's wings |
|---|---|
| present participle | singeing one's wings |
| past participle | singed one's wings |
| past | singed one's wings |
Origin of singe one's wings
Allusion to the tragic story from Hellenic mythology, where Icarus along with his father Daedalus befled the Cretan labyrinth of Knossos by flying with wings that his father had made from feathers and wax. Daedalus forewarned his son of flying neither too low nor too high, that the sea's dampness not clog his wings nor the sun's heat melt them; but Icarus unheeding his father's bidding flew too near to the sun, thereby melting the wax in his wings: so he tumbled out of the sky and fell into the Aegean Sea where he drowned.
Questions about singe one's wings
- What does singe one's wings mean?
- Singe one's wings means to sustain harm, loss or ruin by doing some risky or perilous deed.
- What part of speech is singe one's wings?
- Singe one's wings is a verb.
- What is the past tense of singe one's wings?
- The past tense of singe one's wings is singed one's wings.
Words near singe one's wings in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: singe one's wings (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-singe one's wings.ogg.
Cite this entry: “singe one's wings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/singe_one%27s_wings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.