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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, ager, meaning "field." English speakers had been employing aerie as a word for a bird's nest for more than a century when he 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."
Examples of aerie in a Sentence
Los Angeles Times, 6 July 2025
Click here to see all the photos of the glamorous Manhattan aerie.
—Tori Latham, Robb Report, 22 May 2025
Spanning the entire 32nd floor of the Olympia Dumbo and going for $19.5 million, the five-bedroom aerie offers spine-tingling views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges plus shimmering New York Harbor and skyline vistas for your own main-character brooding.
—Demetrius Simms, Robb Report, 2 June 2025
And now, the super-luxe Upper East Side condominium has given Robb Report an exclusive look at the swanky full-floor aerie, which is currently listed for $24.7 million.
—Abby Montanez, Robb Report, 13 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for aerie
Cite this Entry
“Aerie.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aerie. Accessed 19 Jul. 2025.
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