fledgling
pronunciation
How to pronounce fledgling in British English:
UK [ˈfledʒlɪŋ]
How to pronounce fledgling in American English:
US [ˈfledʒlɪŋ]
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- Noun:
- any new participant in some activity
- young bird that has just fledged or become capable of flying
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- Adjective:
- of a young bird just having acquired its flight feathers
- young and inexperienced
Word Origin
- fledgling
- also fledgeling, 1830, "untried" (adj.), in Tennyson; 1846 as a noun meaning "young bird" (one newly fledged); from fledge + diminutive suffix -ling. Of persons, from 1856.
Example
- 1. The pressure on the fledgling entrepreneur is intense .
- 2. For a fledgling nation the paintings are important as an historical record .
- 3. This is a question of growing importance for yukio hatoyama , the fledgling prime minister .
- 4. The fact that this fledgling postexilic community soon stumbled into a new generation of fresh problems and old sins should not diminish the power of their example for believers today .
- 5. By the time he worked his way up from fledgling engineer to ceo of the boeing commercial airplanes unit , alan mulally had revolutionized the design of commercial aircraft .