beat the wing

English

Verb

beat the wing (third-person singular simple present beats the wing, present participle beating the wing, simple past beat the wing, past participle beaten the wing or (colloquial) beat the wing)

1. To flutter; to move with fluttering agitation.
   • 1674, John Dryden, State of Innocence:

     Thrice have I beat the wing, and rid with night / About the world.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “beat the wing”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)