unfledged
adjective
Simple meaning
Of a person: not yet fully grown or mature.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnflehjdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənfˈlɛdʒd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
figurative
Of a person: not yet fully grown or mature; lacking experience, like a novice or tyro; immature, inexperienced; hence, of or relating to youth.
figurative
Of a thing: not yet fully developed; imperfect, incomplete, unfinished.
of birds
Not yet having developed feathers
“A small unfledged sparrow on the window sill.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Of a person: not yet fully grown or mature; lacking experience, like a novice or tyro; immature, inexperienced; hence, of or relating to youth.
Used this way, unfledged is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use unfledged
- “A small unfledged sparrow on the window sill.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Not fully formed or developed.
Untried or inexperienced.
Lacking practical experience or training.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of a person
Antonyms
Sense: of a person
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.