aloft

UK/əˈlɒft/US/əˈlɔft/

adverbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Aloft means high up in the air, held or flying above. Overhead, and staying there.

It is formal and slightly literary, and it follows the verb, so a flag held aloft or a bird circling aloft. Sailing gave English the word, since aloft on a ship means up in the rigging, and a great deal of nautical vocabulary reached ordinary speech that way. Sport uses it for trophies, and a captain lifting a cup aloft is a fixed image.

Definitions of aloft

1adverbaloftUp in or into the air.C2
“They carried the banner aloft through the whole march.”

Where it comes from

Old Norse
á lopti — in the sky
English, today
aloft

From Old Norse á lopti (“in the sky”); equivalent to a + loft.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 29 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

aloft in the wild

Low-pressure systems form under areas of wind divergence that occur in the upper levels of the atmosphere (aloft).
Low-pressure area
A second is an area where wind divergence aloft occurs ahead of embedded shortwave troughs, which are of smaller wavelength.
Low-pressure area
Levitation is the process by which an object is held aloft in a stable position, without mechanical support via any physical contact.
Levitation (physics)
A soffit is an exterior architectural feature, generally the horizontal, aloft underside of the roof edge.
Soffit
Until the most recent competition in 2022, the United States has had 15 representatives (5 in each of the 3 disciplines: time aloft, distance, and aerobatics).
Red Bull Paper Wings

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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