flyaway means disposed to fly away; unrestrained; light and free. It carries an Arena rating of 1795, earned across 28 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, flyaway ranks #1,108 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,567 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #1,572 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #2,928 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
Why “flyaway” is a great word
FLYAWAY — [Adjective, Noun] Tending to fly off or be carried by the wind; (of hair) soft, light, and unruly; (of a person) flighty or frivolous; a stray strand of such hair. From the verb fly + the adverb away, meaning 'to fly off'. First recorded in adjectival use 1765–75. Unlike "windblown" (which describes a state already imposed by a current of air) or "frizzy" (which denotes a texture of dense, coiled rebellion), flyaway describes an inherent, poised lightness, a readiness for departure. It is the fine, static-charged hair that lifts like thistledown, the first dry leaf to shudder on its stem before the breeze arrives, and the ash from a forgotten cigarette tracing a frantic, upward spiral in still air—a quiet testament to the gravitational defiance of the insubstantial.
Etymology
From fly + away.
adj
- Disposed to fly away; unrestrained; light and free.
- Flighty; frivolous
- Soft, light, unruly, and difficult to set into a style.e.g.“[...] and Lorene mumbled thanks, and slid out of the booth again, a big boned, pretty girl with a tiny pearl glinting above her eye and flyaway streaked hair [...].” — 2001, Joyce Carol Oates, Middle Age : A Romance (paperback), Fourth estate, page 231:
noun
- A stray hair that is difficult to style.e.g.“Consequently, there is a swell of hair care regimens, including serums, gels, balms, creams and sprays promising moisture-rich curls, without frizz or flyaways.” — 2007 January 18, Marcelle S. Fischler, “Taming Frizz and Setting Curls Free”, in New York Times:
- Anything that is difficult to capture or restrain.e.g.“But Truth is such a flyaway, such a slyboots, so untransportable and unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light.” — 1838 July 24, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Literary Ethics. An Oration Delivered before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838”, in Nature, Addresses, and Lectures (Emerson’s Complete Wor
- A kind of dismount from bars that incorporates one or more flips or twists.
- A portable satellite television antenna.
- A situation where an operator loses control of a drone.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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