Flightling

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who flees or takes flight; an escapee, fugitive, or refugee.

    "We were the witnesses not of a few handsful of casual flightlings, but of the general exodus of the inhabitants of a whole territory."

  2. 2
    A young or little flyer (person or creature that flies).

    "In that country style place with an abundant garden the lady of the house would put special toast slices, a nutty high-grain variety dried to an ideal texture for birds, out for the collection of flightlings that attended the daily garden feast."

Synonyms

All synonyms
refugee

Example

More examples

"We were the witnesses not of a few handsful of casual flightlings, but of the general exodus of the inhabitants of a whole territory."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From flight (“fleeing”) + -ling. Cognate with West Frisian flechtling (“refugee”), Dutch vluchteling (“refugee”), German Low German Flüchtling (“refugee”), German Flüchtling (“refugee”). Compare also Danish flygtning (“refugee”), Swedish flykting (“refugee”), Norwegian flyktning (“refugee”).

Etymology 2

From flight (“flying”) + -ling.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.