wingbeat

noun

wingbeat

noun

Etymology From wing + beat.

1

A single stroke made in flight by the wings of an animal that flies by beating its wings.

  • The birds spotted me the moment I approached. A strong southwest gale was blowing. At times, one or both of them would swing almost directly above me and without a single wingbeat remain almost motionless, in defiance of the wind, for moments at a time.1961, Edmund C. Jaeger, Desert Wildlife, Stanford University Press, page 169:
  • In addition to acoustic measurement, other methods can be used to determine wingbeat frequency.2018, Robert Dudley, The Biomechanics of Insect Flight: Form, Function, Evolution, Princeton University Press, page 87:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.