Wing

How to spell wing

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce wing

What does wing mean?

1. nounOne of the paired limbs or surfaces that a bird, insect, or aircraft uses to fly.
2. nounA section of a building that projects from or extends off the main part.
3. verbTo do something without preparation, improvising as you go.

Wing in a sentence

• noun

  The eagle folded one wing against its body before diving.

• noun

  The new maternity wing opened on the east side of the hospital.

• verb

  With no notes ready, she had to wing the entire presentation.

• noun

  A crack in the aircraft wing delayed the flight for safety checks.

• noun

  The library occupies the entire north wing of the campus.

• verb

  Rather than rehearse, he chose to wing his speech at the wedding.

Where does wing come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Wing entered English from Old Norse, where the plural form vaengir referred to the feathered limbs of a bird; the related singular vaengr meant a wing or a flank. Norse settlers brought the word to England during the period of Scandinavian influence in the early Middle Ages, and by the 1100s it had largely displaced the native Old English term fether-hama, meaning 'feather-covering'. Over the centuries the sense broadened well beyond birds: it came to describe the projecting parts of buildings, the side sections of an army, the flat surfaces that lift an aircraft, and the political flanks of a party. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, a short clean monosyllable, so the only thing to remember is the single 'n' followed by the 'g' that together make the -ng sound. Its Norse origin places it among a large family of everyday English words, such as 'sky', 'window', and 'leg', that we owe to the same Viking-era borrowing.

How the word is built

• wing (single root; no prefix or suffix, from Old Norse vængr)