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Definition of aerie
1 : the nest of a bird on a cliff or a mountaintop
2 obsolete : a brood of birds of prey
3 : an elevated often secluded dwelling, structure, or position
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aerie was our Word of the Day on 01/31/2014. Hear the podcast!
Theme music by Joshua Stamper ©2006 New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP
Recent Examples of aerie from the Web
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Then there's the price for the luxury aerie, which was put on the market June 21 and remains the most expensive of the building's units for sale: $2.35 million.
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Dabney Tompkins and Alan Colley, owners of the aerie called Summit Prairie Lookout, have created the comforts of home in a fortress that's up four flights of stairs and surrounded by the Umpqua National Forest.
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From his aerie in the gilded ceiling of the vast Metropolitan Opera House, just behind the Sputnik chandeliers and some six stories above the stage, Tim Guscott fixed Anna Netrebko in his sights.
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Chorus soprano Alison Wahl floated her brief solo lines appealingly from her aerie in the lower balcony.
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Seen from sophisticated aeries such as New York or London, their politics have often seemed clownish and tinhorn.
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There were 20 dark blue boxes there in an otherwise clutter-free aerie given over to Modernist furniture, coffee table books and art.
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The lawyer slumped, defeated, and set himself to the final assault on Angel's aerie.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'aerie'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
English poet John Milton put a variant of "aerie" to good use in Paradise Lost (1667), writing "...there the eagle and the stork / On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build." But Milton wasn't the first to use the term, which comes to us via Medieval Latin and Old French and probably traces to an earlier Latin word for "nest" or "lair." English speakers had been employing "aerie" as a word for "bird's nest" for more than a century when Milton penned those words. Eventually, "aerie" was applied to human dwellings as well as birds' nests. At first, this sense referred to dwellings nestled high up in mountains or hills. These days, you're also likely to hear high-rise city apartments or offices referred to as "aeries."
Origin and Etymology of aerie
Medieval Latin aerea, from Old French aire, probably from Vulgar Latin *agrum origin, nest, lair, from Latin ager field — more at acre
AERIE Defined for English Language Learners
aerie
playDefinition of aerie for English Language Learners
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: the nest of a bird (such as an eagle or hawk) built high up on a cliff or on the top of a mountain
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: a room or building built high up so that people inside can see things happening below them
Learn More about aerie
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See words that rhyme with aerie Spanish Central: Translation of aerie Nglish: Translation of aerie for Spanish speakers
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