Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A small joint in the middle of a bird's wing, homologous with the thumb and bearing three or four quill-like feathers.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In ornithology, the winglet, bastard wing, or ala spuria of a bird; the packet of small feathers which grows upon the so-called thumb of a bird's wing.
- In entomology: The small membranous appendage or scale situated at the base of each wing of many dipterous insects, above the halteres or poisers.
- A similar appendage beneath each elytron of some water-beetles. Also called
alulet and cucilleron.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A false or bastard wing. See under
bastard .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Bastard wing . A smallprojection on theanterior edge of thewing on some birds.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun scalelike structure between the base of the wing and the halter of a two-winged fly
- noun tuft of small stiff feathers on the first digit of a bird's wing
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Viki remembers the mysterious figure in the dark calling her 'alula' and, as she does some research, the first of a series of startling events that will change her life forever unfold.
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But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they're extremely maneuverable.
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They're lovely -- titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action in stalling.
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While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control -- I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne.
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Two years ago a boy who had just graduated from orange wings tried it ... knocked off his left alula and primaries on a strut -- went fluttering and spinning down two thousand feet and crashed.
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Lobulus: the partly separated portion of the wings of some flies and of secondaries in some Hymenoptera: also used as = alula; q.v. Lobus: of maxilla = galea; q.v. Locomotion: organs of, are legs and wings.
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Axillary lobe: the sclerite covering the base of the wing in Diptera; see also alula and posterior lobe.
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Alulet: Diptera: the lobe at basal posterior part of wing; = alar appendage; posterior lobe: and has been used as = alula.
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Aileron: the scale covering the base of primaries in some insects; see tegulae in Diptera = alula and squama, q.v. Air-sacs or vesicles: pouch-like expansions of tracheal tubes in heavy insects, capable of inflation and supposed to lessen specific gravity.
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Axillary excision: = a. incision, q.v. Axillary incision: Diptera; an incision on inner margin of wing, near base, which separates the alula from the main part.
reesetee commented on the word alula
A small group of feathers attached to the first "finger" (at the bend) of a bird's wing; they reduce turbulence and drag and assist with "braking" and "steering."
September 25, 2007
fbharjo commented on the word alula
...and a palindrome on wings to fly
February 14, 2012