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Glite Dictionary
short-winged

short-winged

7.9
Having very short wings so the animal cannot fly far
  • adjective
translation icon : de alas cortas
  • Because it is short-winged, this species of moth cannot fly long distances.

Examples

  • The short-winged insects struggled to escape from the web.

  • The biologist discovered a short-winged beetle in the leaf litter.

  • Many cave-dwelling insects are short-winged or completely wingless.

  • The short-winged insects struggled to fly.

  • A short-winged species was discovered in the rainforest.

  • She observed a group of short-winged beetles crawling on the ground.

  • Unlike their long-winged cousins, the short-winged species cannot fly.

Synonyms

small-winged
vsshort-winged
1 5.8

With wings that are small for its body

means wings are extremely reduced or clearly underdeveloped rather than just smaller
brachypterous
vsshort-winged
  • Specialized
9.9

Having very short wings so an insect cannot fly

is written as a hyphenated multiword form rather than one word

How Short

wingless
2 3.5
short-winged
7.9
winged
31 3.9

Surface Forms

short-winged positive

Morphology

short-winged = short + winged (transparent) = short + wing + ed

Formed by compounding 'short' + 'winged' (where 'winged' = 'wing' + '-ed'), so the meaning is directly derivable from its parts.

Etymology

Short-winged is made of the parts short, wing, and the ending -ed, and it literally means 'having short wings'. Imagine a moth or beetle with very small wings that cannot fly far, and that picture explains why we use the word for insects with not fully formed wings.