on the fly

See also:on-the-fly

English

Alternative forms

• on-the-fly

Pronunciation

• Audio(General Australian):

  (file)

Adverb

onthefly(notcomparable)

1. (baseball,of the ball)While in theair,without havingtouchedtheground.

   Synonym:in flight

   Jones caught the ballon the fly.

2. (idiomatic)Spontaneouslyorextemporaneously;done as one goes, or during another activity.

   Synonyms:in flight,on the wing;on the spot;on the hoof(Britain)

   Hypernym:dynamically

   The software program has a table of values for some results, but calculates otherson the fly.

Derived terms

• OTFE,on-the-fly encryption

Related terms

• fly by the seat of one's pants

Translations

while in the air

• Catalan:al vol
• Danish:i farten,i skyndingen
• Finnish:lennosta
• French:à la volée(fr)
• Portuguese:sem sobressaltos
• Russian:на лету́(ru)(na letú)
• Spanish:al vuelo(es)
• Swedish:i flykten,på lyra
• Turkish:uçarken

spontaneously or extemporaneously

• Finnish:lennosta
• French:à la volée(fr),sur le fly(fr)
• German:inEile(de),spontan(de),unvorbereitet(de),ohne Vorbereitung,fliegend(de),auf die Schnelle(de),improvisiert(de)
• Polish:w locie
• Russian:на лету́(ru)(na letú)
• Spanish:al vuelo(es),a vuelapluma,sobre la marcha
• Swedish:i flykten
• Turkish:anında(tr),hazırlıksız(tr)