wing bar

English

Alternative forms

• wingbar, wing-bar

Noun

wing bar (plural wing bars)

Wing bars on a Northern Mockingbird

Wing bar at the mouth of Ribeira de Alcantarilha, Armação de Pêra

Wing bars supporting a plane's wing

1. A band of contrasting color or of feathers with a distinct appearance that crosses a bird's wing.
   • 1980, Carl Fredrik Lundevall, Jim Flegg, The British ornithologists' guide to bird life, page 192:

     The chin and throat are also white, like the wing bar, which is strikingly visible in flight.

   • 2003, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution, →ISBN, page 257:

     Selection affecting the melanization threshold could likewise reduce patch number, which should occur in the reverse order (loss of rump patch followed by loss of crown stripe and finally loss of wing bar.

   • 2012, Todd Telander, Birds of California: A Falcon Field Guide, →ISBN, page 92:

     There is a prominent yellow wing bar on the greater coverts, and yellow on the flight feather edges and base of the primaries.

2. A sand bar or spit at the side of a river, bay, or harbor.
   • 1970, Maritime Sediments - Volumes 1-4, page 12:

     The harbour entrance is the result of the inability of the shore drift to build a complete wing bar because of the scour created by the great tidal range in this area.

   • 1977, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of America Bulletin:

     Wing bar on Shetucket River below Frog Brook shows location of ice and drift dam that attained elevation of 82 m (270 ft).

3. A support strut on for the wing of an airplane.
   • 1912, United States. Patent Office, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, page 497:

     In a flying machine, a supporting surface comprising a flexible body, a fixed front wing bar, a centrally pivoted rear wing bar, flexible ribs connecting said bars, slidable supports for the rear wing bar, and sustaining springs associated with said supports.

   • 1919, The Canadian Patent Office Record and Register of Copyrights and Trade Marks, volume 46, issue 2., page 3041:

     In an aeroplane having superposed aerofoils each provided with a leading edge bar, a trailing edge bar, a central wing bar designed to resist greater lift than drift stresses and positioned approximately at the most forward center of pressure, a rear wing bar designed to resist greater drift than lift stresses and compression ribs connecting said ribs, diagonal wires to truss drift stresses connecting the leading ege bar with the rear wing bars of each aerofoil, a single row of struts directly connected at their ends to and holding the central wing bars in spaced relation, and brace members having a common connection with the central portion.

   • 1990, International Civil Aviation Organization, Aerodrome design and operations, page 59:

     The difference between the angles of the upper approach slope and lower approach slope can never be less than the angular depth of the transition sector of the middle wing bar.

4. One of two shallow bars on either side of the flue of a small boiler, designed to fill the space resulting from the extreme curvature of the flue.
   • 1913, Engineering News-record - Volume 70, page 1317:

     ...the tendency is to wedge the metal sheets which compose the flume between the wings of the inner or wing bar.