Other forms: wings
A wing is one of the two parts a bird flies with. Feathers, hollow bones, and a shape that makes lift.
Aircraft borrowed the word and the shape, and so did insects and bats. Buildings have wings, meaning a section built out to one side, which is where the east wing of a hospital comes from. Theatre has the wings, the space at the sides of the stage where actors wait. It gives English a great deal of idiom, including taking somebody under your wing, waiting in the wings, and winging it, which means doing something with no preparation at all.
1nounwingOne of the paired limbs a bird or insect uses to fly.~50%
“The bird had hurt its wing.”
2nounbuildingA part of a building extending from the main section.~50%
“Her office is in the north wing.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 8 of them on a sense (7 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: wings
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂weh₁-
Old Norse
vængr
Middle English
winge
English, today
wing
From Middle English winge, wenge, from Old Norse vængr "wing of a flying animal, wing of a building"; compare vængi (“ship's cabin”), from Proto-Germanic wēingijaz, from Proto-Indo-European h₂weh₁- (“to blow”), thus related to wind. Cognate with Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish vinge (“wing”), ovd waingg (“wing”), Faroese vongur (“wing”), Icelandic vængur (“wing”), Norwegian Nynorsk veng (“wing”). Replaced native fither (from fiþre, from fiþriją), which merged with fether (from feþer, from Proto-Germanic feþrō). More at feather*.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA