kite

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A light frame covered with paper or fabric, flown in the wind on a long string.

   On windy spring days, we would fly kites.

2. 2
   noun

   A bird of prey with long wings and a forked tail.

   A pair of kites built a nest on the cliff.

3. 3
   verb

   To fly a kite.

   I like to kite when the wind is right.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Kite was the Old English name of the bird of prey. In the mid seventeenth century the name was transferred to the toy because it floats or hangs in the air like the bird.

Uncertain; possibly: * from Middle English kit, kitte (“wooden bucket or tub; (figuratively) belly”), possibly from Middle Dutch kitte (“wooden vessel of hooped staves”) (modern Dutch kit (“metal can used mainly for coal”)), further etymology unknown; or * from Old Norse kýta (“bag, stomach (of a fish)”), from Proto-Germanic *kūtiz. * from Middle English *kid (attested only in compounds such as kide-nẹ̄re (“kidney; region of the kidneys, loins”)), possibly from Old English *cyde, *cydde (“belly”), cwiþ (“belly; womb”), from Proto-Germanic *kweþuz (“belly, stomach”), from Proto-Indo-European *g…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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