Alula
//ˈæljuːlə// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A small projection of three or four feathers on the first digit of the wing on some birds.
"More recently, the upturned wing tips of jet aircraft mimic the "fingers" of birds' terminal primary feathers, and the slotted leading edges of aircraft wings are directly copied from the alula ("thumb" wings) in birds."
- 2 A flower, a species of Hawaiian lobelioid
- 3 tuft of small stiff feathers on the first digit of a bird's wing wordnet
- 4 scalelike structure between the base of the wing and the halter of a two-winged fly wordnet
Example
More examples"More recently, the upturned wing tips of jet aircraft mimic the "fingers" of birds' terminal primary feathers, and the slotted leading edges of aircraft wings are directly copied from the alula ("thumb" wings) in birds."
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Latin ala (“wing”) + -ula.
Etymology 2
From Hawaiian ʻŌlulu.
More for "alula"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.