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Glite Dictionary
to fly by the seat of your pants

to fly by the seat of your pants

3 8.5
To make quick decisions without a plan
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : improvisar
  • When planning the event, we decided to fly by the seat of our pants and hope for the best.
  • fly by the seat of your pants
  • just fly by the seat of your pants

Examples

  • I do way too much flying by the seat of my pants.

    Blog text (14)

  • She'd been flying by the seat of her pants for the last twenty minutes, and it didn't take an experienced agent to figure out that that kind of improvisation was dangerous.

    Blog text (26)

  • There is a pattern here: when you fly by the seat of your pants, you get in trouble.

    Blog text (27)

  • Are there guarantees, or is it just flying by the seat of your pants?

    Academic text (1996)

  • It's purely flying by the seat of our pants and making the best of a bad situation.

    Blog text (24)

  • When you're flying by the seat of your pants, nothing sounds more official than a Plan B.

    The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)

  • I'm hoping for a low-key dinner at my parents' house, although in my family, we fly by the seat of our pants.

    Blog text (19)

  • Kay supported Charlie's comments when she said, "I agree, the first week we flew by the seat of our pants."

    Academic text (1992)

  • That was probably the first realization that Reid no longer had a plan and was flying by the seat of his pants.

    Blog text (7)

  • "So I had to fly by the seat of my pants, as it were, using my eyes and intuition and a constant stream of information from Lynn."

    Fiction book (2000)

Synonyms

to wing it
vsto fly by the seat of your pants
  • Informal
28 6.1

Do something without planning or preparation and improvise

uses instinct as the main guide rather than any plan
flying blind
vsto fly by the seat of your pants
  • Informal
7 7.9

Being without enough information or clear instructions in a difficult situation

acts from instinct rather than because of missing information
to shoot from the hip
vsto fly by the seat of your pants
  • Informal
6 8.1

To speak or act quickly without thinking carefully

is driven by instinct but not merely a rash quick reaction
to run with instincts
vsto fly by the seat of your pants
7.7

To follow your natural feelings when making a decision

acts by instinct and improvises rather than following rules

Antonyms

planning
507 2.2

To think ahead and decide what to do to prepare for something

to follow the rule
55 2.8

Do what a rule says

How Planned

to plan
∞ 1.0
to fly by the seat of your pants
  • Informal
3 8.5
impulse
185 3.6

Surface Forms

fly by the seat of your pants infinitive

Morphology

fly + by + the + seat + of + your + pant

The overall meaning 'to improvise or act by instinct' is not predictably built from the literal senses of 'fly', 'seat', and 'pants'; it's an idiomatic/metaphorical expression (originating in aviation) where the connection between parts and meaning is culturally specific. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would be unlikely to infer this figurative sense without prior exposure.

Etymology

Fly by the seat of your pants — One popular story says this comes from early pilots. With few instruments, they had to feel the plane's movement through the seat of their pants and steer by feeling rather than by a plan, so the phrase now means 'to act without a plan'.