Wingbeat

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A single stroke made in flight by the wings of an animal that flies by beating its wings.

    "The birds spotted me the moment I approached. A strong southwest gale was blowing. At times, one or both of them would swing almost directly above me and without a single wingbeat remain almost motionless, in defiance of the wind, for moments at a time."

Example

More examples

"A wingbeat – and behind us aeons!"

Etymology

From wing + beat.

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