proverb · Words worth keeping
Words have no wings but they can fly a thousand miles.
Words have no wings but they can fly a thousand miles.
Historical period not yet established
Understand the thought
Meaning in plain English
The saying gives wingless words the ability to travel a thousand miles. It imagines speech moving far beyond the place where it began.
What the words are saying
The impossible flight makes circulation vivid, while the distance is rhetorical. A useful application can consider an audience beyond the original listener. The phrase does not measure how far a particular message will spread or establish that circulation makes its contents reliable.
Everyday example
A writer considers how a shared message might be read outside the original conversation before sending it.
When to use it
Use it to discuss the possible reach of communication.
What it does not mean
Neither the distance nor eventual audience is established, and reach does not prove truth.
Agent-assisted editorial interpretation. This explains the words; it does not by itself verify their author or earliest origin.
Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Traditional
Attribution: traditional - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Historical period not yet established
No sufficiently supported historical placement has been established. Import and download dates are not treated as composition dates. - Recorded source
- Contributor-provided proverb reference
Supplied reference A; unit 98; PDF page 18
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.