Word of the Day Archive
Monday December 17, 2007
unfledged \uhn-FLEJD\ , adjective:
1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight.
2. Not fully developed; immature.
It is most likely that this parrot was caught when very young, even possibly unfledged, and was totally nurtured by humans.
-- D'vora Ben Shaul, "A parrot in a man's world", Jerusalem Post, June 15, 1997
Some also charge the leaders with sheltering unfledged youth from the real world or, as one public education official quoted in the Washington Post put it, "prolonging a cocoon existence."
-- Helen Mondloch, "Homegrown Virtue on Campus", World and I, November 1, 2001
He is not naive, unfledged, but he is always in some way a "Johnny come lately."
-- Robert Creeley, "Austerities", Review of Contemporary Fiction, March 22, 1994
Unfledged is from obsolete fledge, "capable of flying; feathered," from Middle English flegge, from Old English -flycge.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for unfledged
