"flies" meaning in English

See flies in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /flaɪz/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-flies.wav
Rhymes: -aɪz Head templates: {{head|en|noun form}} flies
  1. plural of fly Tags: form-of, plural Form of: fly
    Sense id: en-flies-en-noun-~hwwNlp5

Noun

IPA: /flaɪz/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-flies.wav
Rhymes: -aɪz Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} flies pl (plural only)
  1. The open area above a stage where scenery and equipment may be hung. Tags: plural, plural-only Derived forms: catch flies, drop like flies, no flies on
    Sense id: en-flies-en-noun-XrPQvUZ4

Verb

IPA: /flaɪz/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-flies.wav
Rhymes: -aɪz Head templates: {{head|en|verb form}} flies
  1. third-person singular simple present indicative of fly Tags: form-of, indicative, present, singular, third-person Form of: fly
    Sense id: en-flies-en-verb-o44vo~oy Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum, Pages with 2 entries, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 7 18 75 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 31 14 55 Disambiguation of Pages with 2 entries: 5 15 80 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 3 13 84
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "word": "fly"
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          "fly",
          "fly#English"
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    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-aɪz"
    }
  ],
  "word": "flies"
}

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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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    {
      "categories": [],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "catch flies"
        },
        {
          "word": "drop like flies"
        },
        {
          "word": "no flies on"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1792, Charles Dibdin, chapter 6, in Hannah Hewit: or, the Female Crusoe, volume 1, London: for the author, page 167:",
          "text": "[…] I was born in the dressing-room, suckled in the flies, educated in the lobby, and brought up in the property-room […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1869, W. S. Gilbert, “Only a Dancing Girl”, in The “Bab” Ballads, London: John Camden Hotten, page 25:",
          "text": "Hung from the “flies” in air,\nShe acts a palpable lie,\nShe’s as little a fairy there\nAs unpoetical I!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1937, Ngaio Marsh, chapter 14, in Vintage Murder, New York: Jove Books, published 1978, page 156:",
          "text": "One of the staff was up in the flies fixing the weight for the mast. The head mechanist and Ted Gascoigne were down below on the stage, having an argument. Suddenly, the gentleman in the flies got all careless and dropped the weight.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "The open area above a stage where scenery and equipment may be hung."
      ],
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      "rhymes": "-aɪz"
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  "word": "flies"
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      "word": "catch flies"
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      "word": "drop like flies"
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      "word": "no flies on"
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          "ref": "1792, Charles Dibdin, chapter 6, in Hannah Hewit: or, the Female Crusoe, volume 1, London: for the author, page 167:",
          "text": "[…] I was born in the dressing-room, suckled in the flies, educated in the lobby, and brought up in the property-room […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
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          "ref": "1869, W. S. Gilbert, “Only a Dancing Girl”, in The “Bab” Ballads, London: John Camden Hotten, page 25:",
          "text": "Hung from the “flies” in air,\nShe acts a palpable lie,\nShe’s as little a fairy there\nAs unpoetical I!",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1937, Ngaio Marsh, chapter 14, in Vintage Murder, New York: Jove Books, published 1978, page 156:",
          "text": "One of the staff was up in the flies fixing the weight for the mast. The head mechanist and Ted Gascoigne were down below on the stage, having an argument. Suddenly, the gentleman in the flies got all careless and dropped the weight.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
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        "The open area above a stage where scenery and equipment may be hung."
      ],
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  "word": "flies"
}

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    },
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Download raw JSONL data for flies meaning in English (4.2kB)

{
  "called_from": "form_description/20250107",
  "msg": "Form tags without form: desc='plural plural-only', tagsets=[('plural', 'plural-only')]",
  "path": [
    "flies"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "flies",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (7c21d10 and f2e72e5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.