wingy

comparative more wingy · superlative most wingy

1. archaicWinged, or as if winged; inclined to fly.

   The path that leads, where, hung ſublime, / And ſeen afar, youth's gallant trophies, bright / In Fancy's rainbow ray, invite / His wingy nerves to climb.

   1780, James Beattie, “Ode to Hope”, in Poems on Several Occasions, 4th edition, London: […] T. Strahan, T. Crowder, S. Becket, J. Lownds, T. Robinson, G. Clarke, →OCLC, stanza II.I., page 52

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   —and I ran up and down in the scale of semibreves and minims that I had heard, with the one long, sweet trill transfusing life on earth into heavenly existence, and I felt very wingy, very much as if I could take up the tower, standing high and square out there, and carry it, "like Loretto's chapel, through the air to the green land," where my spirit would go singing evermore.

   1862, Various, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862

   The later Pythagoreans and Platonists seem to have believed that the same numerical ethereal body with which the soul was at first created adhered to it inseparably during all its descents into grosser bodies, a lucid and wingy vehicle, which, purged by diet and catharms, ascends again, bearing the soul to its native seat.

   1880, William Rounseville Alger, The Destiny of the Soul

plural wingies

1. slangOne who has an amputated arm or arms.

   All the golfers shown played in the N.Z. Annual "wingies" and "limbies" tournament, total number of competitors, 40.

   1968, George Bremner Abel, Walking Skills for Amputees, page 57

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   He was crippled in one leg, which fact accounted for his moniker, for on the Road a lame man is a gimpy; even as a one-armed man is a wingy.

   1925, Glen Hawthorne Mullin, Adventures of a Scholar Tramp, page 187

   Many of the cricketers were amputees, yet they were not without resources. The "wingies" did the running for the "stumpies," and the "stumpies" did the batting for the "wingies."

   1976 -, Victor Cohn, Sister Kenny: The Woman Who Challenged the Doctors, →ISBN, page 63

   Although I knew comparatively little of matronship, as such, I did know a great deal of mothering, and for "wingies and stumpies" as they called themselves, the blind and the maimed who had given so much, all the service and devotion of which I was capable was only too little.

   2004, Daisy Bates, Peter J. Bridge, My Natives and I, page 154

2. slangOne who has a wing position.

   Damn it all, I know you're right, Dar, but I've never lost a wingy before.

   2000, David Corbett, Shield of Lantius, →ISBN, page 151

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   Wingies, don't you love the lead who immediately rudders you out to route at 500 feet and then turns into you while giving a channel change.

   1985, TAC Attack, page 19

   My wingies tried to pep-talk me into believing that I could do better in the next test.

   2014, L Suresh, The Pilani Pilgrims, →ISBN